


Dip your hands inside my soul, Don't you see that I'm yours?

by sunwisher



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Woosan, Woosan are BFFs who are in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwisher/pseuds/sunwisher
Summary: Wooyoung catches on to what’s happening way too late. San plops down on the seat next to his and tugs on his hand, placing it on top of his head.“Please,” he says, eyes already half-lidded and going slightly cross-eyed with how his cheek is squished against the table.“I could have had class,” Wooyoung says, not giving in yet.“You have afternoons off on Fridays,” San says and it’s endearing, how he still possesses control of his cognitive skills and remembers Wooyoung’s schedule even if he’s toeing the edge of oblivion.Wooyoung decides to indulge San and closes his books, moving them away so that he can lie down on the table facing San. He scratches San’s scalp, alternating between gentle and slightly harsher movements in a way he knows will turn his best friend to putty.Or, Wooyoung has been in love with his best friend, San, for a long time, completely oblivious to the possibility that San feels the same too. Mutual pining and endless cuddling ensue with a generous serving of idiots being in love.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 108
Kudos: 792





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello rockstars,
> 
> This idea hit me out of nowhere and I knew I had to crank it out while I had the juice for it! The fic's already fully written, but I felt like dividing and posting will be better, so you've got another chapter coming up soon! I hope you guys enjoy! Happy reading!

“Did you prepare for the presentation?” 

Wooyoung is munching on a bag of chips, blowing soft puffs of air at the spiciness assaulting his taste buds. He will never understand how San just inhales these without even properly chewing them. San sinks to the ground once again, keeping eye contact and nods, the veins in his neck rising at the effort. 

“Yeah. Yeosang’s supposed to be doing the second half,” San says. His voice is strained, like someone is holding him down with a crowbar shoved against his neck, but that’s understandable considering how he’s doing pushups. He’s been into the fitness scene lately, much to Wooyoung’s chagrin and barely concealed disgust since he was unfairly being deprived of his weekly brownies and donuts. 

Wooyoung snorts at the choked out response and pointedly ignores the breathy grunts that San is letting out as he sinks to the ground, arm muscles and shoulders flexing with every move. 

“San, I think you’re _way_ past fifty push-ups,” Wooyoung says, letting the warning tone curl into his voice. San’s not subtle about anything he does, and Wooyoung’s been keeping count, so he’s pretty sure that San has reached the low nineties. He doesn’t want to hear his best friend bitch about being sore and guilt-tripping him into giving him a massage again.

No physical activity for him, please. Wooyoung’s just a loud gremlin who wants to stay in bed, stuff his face with chips and survive college. 

San rolls his eyes and Wooyoung huffs. The sheer disrespect he’s being given today. He shoves even more chips than his mouth can accommodate and chews on them with renewed vengeance. He knows he must look funny, but there is no place for beauty in war.

Watching San exercise is always torture, Wooyoung thinks, leaning back against the bed frame, his knees tucked to his chest and hood pulled over his head.

“I’m doing a hundred today.”

Wooyoung’s eyes widen. He should have known. _No._ He already knew, but San admitting it is a whole different story. It’s to the point that if San could be called one thing for the rest of his life, Wooyoung would call him the king of denial.

“You do know that this isn’t a competition, right? It’s just a dude from high school. He probably doesn’t even remember you,” Wooyoung says, and it’s true. San’s sudden interest in building muscle mass and trying to pretend like he has the best posture is just a product of stumbling upon a random post on Facebook of this one guy from their high school. He used to be really lean and lanky and was always being shoved around, but in the post, he’d bulked up considerably, so much that Wooyoung wouldn’t even have recognized him if San hadn’t told him.

San must decide that workout session is over for today as he stares up at Wooyoung after two more pushups. He straightens up, panting slightly, sweat beading all over the skin of his exposed arms and neck. The white undershirt is already soaked through and Wooyoung gets the distinct urge to get up and smack him for pushing himself so hard for something so incredibly stupid.

But, Wooyoung’s too comfortable on the ground with his chips.

On second thought, his ass might be going numb, but priorities. 

Not that his ass isn’t one. It is.

Wooyoung couldn’t possibly have cared less about spite training himself just because one random kid decided to go all macho man, but it’s San’s body and he has the right to do anything he wants with it. 

“It’s not just any random kid! Jeez, Wooyoung! It’s the brat who called you an idiot when you were paired up for that stupid physics project.”

San huffs in exasperation, pairing it with another roll of his eyes like he’s just stated the most obvious and sensible thing in the world. Wooyoung feels his jaw fall open and he quickly clicks it shut.

“I’m not sure if I heard that right. Did you just admit to working out to level the field for a grudge you’ve been carrying since _ninth_ grade for something which didn’t even _involve_ you?”

San coughs into his fist and it’s so _fake_ , Wooyoung can’t help the snort that leaves him.

“Why would you hold a grudge for that long, Sannie? I am all for fitness and all, but what’s the point in working out when we don’t even know if we’re going to see the guy again? And even if we did, what do you plan to do? Sock him in the face?”

Wooyoung snorts again, shaking his head at San’s antics. San just folds his arms and raises an eyebrow at him.

“You did not,” Wooyoung says when realization finally smacks him in the face.

San shrugs and Wooyoung facepalms. “I almost did.”

“So what? Were you planning on waiting till the guy somehow stumbled into you to say _hey, asshole_ and sucker punch him?”

San remains ominously quiet.

“Wow,” Wooyoung breathes and puts the infernally hot chips to the side. “You really _are_ an idiot.”

San sputters, offended. “He made you cry,” San says as if that’s enough of an explanation to hold a grudge like he was part of some prophecy and wait for the dude in question to cross paths with him for an indefinite amount of time.

“San, I was in ninth grade,” Wooyoung deadpans.

San shrugs again and Wooyoung picks up the chips back up. It’s spicier than how he prefers his snacks, but he’s in San’s room, and San’s obsessed with this particular brand. He’d be lying if he said that it hasn’t grown on him. 

“You’re in _my_ room,” San says, gesturing at the pigsty he calls his room. It’s a threat.

If he's being honest, Wooyoung’s room looks worse, especially from the near breakdown he’d had over the paper due the day before which he’d barely finished in time, but San doesn’t need to know that.

“Are you gonna kick me out then?” Wooyoung challenges.

“You’re eating _my_ chips, you’re being _extremely_ ungrateful even after knowing that I was trying to protect you against the kid who bullied you when you were in _ninth_ grade and had a bad haircut, _and_ your eyebrows are judging me. Maybe I _should_ kick you out.”

Wooyoung huffs again and gets up, feet moving in the direction of the door and he can see San tense like he hadn’t foreseen this particular turn of events. Wooyoung whoops victoriously as he slowly walks with his head down towards the door.

“Wooyoungie...” San calls, apologetic, walking toward him.

Wooyoung puts the bag of chips down, turns around and _pounces_.

San lands on the mattress with a loud _oof_ and Wooyoung laughs in his face, San groaning at the elbow which accidentally digs into his ribs. Wooyoung moves it away and balances himself on his palms, locking San under him.

“Got you,” Wooyoung says, still laughing as he hovers above San. San’s chest heaves, probably from the workout and he’s all sweaty, and all Wooyoung can think about is years of their childhood when both of them would tackle the other playfully like this and roll around in the lawn until Wooyoung’s mom would yell at them about making laundry difficult for her.

The sunlight filters through the gap in the light beige curtains Wooyoung had helped San put up and Wooyoung squints against the light, looking down to see the brown of San’s bright eyes focused on him. San’s always been really handsome, but the cut of his jaw and the curve of his eyelashes are stunning like this, sweat drying on his forehead and blond hair fanned out on the crumpled covers.

Wooyoung feels his breath catch. He’s about to scramble away when San gives him a devilish smirk and flips them around.

Wooyoung _shrieks_.

“ _I_ got _you_ ,” San says, still grinning down at him. Wooyoung squirms to try to get out of his hold, but San, the brat with his newly acquired superior arm strength, balances himself on one hand and uses the other to pin Wooyoung against the mattress.

“Oh yes, I bow down to Choi San, alpha male and descendant of Superman, now, will you be a dear and let me go?” Wooyoung asks, arching up a little to grit the words out. San’s palm presses him down again.

“Only when you stop being a brat,” he says, gaze roving over Wooyoung’s face. Wooyoung feels a little like he’s naked and San can see right through him, through every thought he’s ever had. He squirms again, suddenly uncomfortable as the urge to hide away immediately registers in him.

San doesn’t notice. He’s still grinning down at him full-force, eyes crinkling into thin crescents that Wooyoung’s left to wonder if he can even see anything.

“I guess I’ll be here for a while then,” Wooyoung says and it doesn’t have the usual heat with which he makes a comeback, but San laughs again, a clear, breathy sound escaping him.

Why were Wooyoung’s lungs finding it so hard to breathe? 

He gets the urge to hit his chest to make the airflow correct itself, but a part of him knows exactly why he’s reacting the way he is, and there’s nothing he can do about it, so he waits patiently for San to show a little mercy.

Fortunately, it seems that San is feeling generous today.

“Idiot,” San says and lifts himself off of him, only to turn and lie down next to him. Wooyoung lets out a humorless laugh which makes San turn towards him.

“What?” He asks. Wooyoung can _hear_ the way all of the gears in San’s head are turning.

“What?” Wooyoung mimes back with exaggerated mouth movements and San gets up, balancing himself on his elbow and smacks him on the arm with a sweaty hand.

“Ew, you’re still sweaty!” Wooyoung says, curling away in faked disgust. 

San clutches his chest with his palm and squints at him, pouting. Wooyoung feels his soul leave his body instantly.

“What kind of best friend are you?” San complains, whining.

Wooyoung rolls his eyes and ignores the way the smell of San’s sweat and cologne is making his head spin.

“The honest and forever kind,” he answers proudly and it makes San soften visibly. He lies back down, their shoulders touching with how they close they are.

Wooyoung regrets coming to San’s dorm first thing in the morning. He should have just lounged in bed or went out with Mingi when he asked if he wanted to tag along for breakfast. It’s as if the universe was mocking him saying _I gave you the chance to run away, but you blew it_.

Wooyoung’s never had stellar self-preservation instincts though, so it makes perfect sense for him to lie right next to his best friend and pretend like as long as he keeps his loud mouth from blurting out what he feels, everything between them will be normal.

Guilt seizes his chest, crawling up suffocatingly, because San deserves someone who would be his friend without thinking about how his sun-kissed hands would feel on their hips, someone who would support him without staring at the exact way his cupid bow arches down in the middle to give him the perfect lips.

San deserves better than what Wooyoung can give him, but fourteen years is a long time to spend with someone and Wooyoung can’t let him go like that, just because his heart stumbled and betrayed him somewhere along the way.

San moves his arm and Wooyoung pliantly lets him, even as he curls around him with a leg flung over his thigh. His hair is still sweaty and it should make him recoil, but it’s _San_ , so he lets it be.

 _Best friends_ , he tells himself and thinks about grades and college and societal pressures and pretends like his heart isn’t in danger of breaking out of his chest.

San puts his palm flat on his chest and Wooyoung pulls back a little to look at him.

“What?” He asks, voice low.

San stares at him for a long, silent moment and it makes Wooyoung want to leap out of bed and buy a cabin in the woods to fulfil his forest witch dreams from back when he was eleven years old. “You were holding your breath,” San tells him before he breaks eye contact.

_Oh._

“I didn’t notice,” Wooyoung stutters, smacking himself internally.

San laughs against him and the sound ripples through Wooyoung’s skin.

“Thought so,” San says, curling his fist around the fabric of his hoodie over his chest.

***

Wooyoung’s only seven years old when he meets San on a playground. It’s not the classic _we were enemies and he stole my ball so I hated him until I realized I didn’t_ kind of story. 

No. 

The universe wasn’t _that_ cruel to give them a cliché origin story.

Instead, Wooyoung’s screeching at a boy who has stolen his ball, a boy he hates with all the fury a seven-year-old could possess at that moment in time. He’s shoved into the sand and before their teacher can run to him and tell off the other boy, there’s a flash of blue and red. Seven-year-old Wooyoung is a superhero cartoon fanatic and briefly thinks that it’s Spiderman. The next thing he knows is the bully landing flat on his ass in the sand and a sketch pen ink-stained hand.

He looks up to meet the brightest and prettiest eye smile he has ever seen on anyone, dimples digging into plump cheeks.

It wasn’t Spiderman, he learns while on the consequent timeout. It was San.

Maybe it’s a little cliché now that he’s not looking at it with the rose-tinted glasses of a seven-year-old whose biggest concern in life was whether his mom poured milk before or after putting cereal, but he liked to think that not many seven-year-olds would have the time of their lives giggling at each other even while getting death glares directed at them by their homeroom teacher.

Looking back, Wooyoung can’t imagine a world where he doesn’t fall for San, not when the other boy made it so easy for him to tumble down the rabbit hole faster than a car racing past the speed limits, one leg pressing down on the accelerator and the brakes torn off.

Wooyoung blinks out of his reverie with a small sigh, his paper on metafiction and its uses in popular fiction with regard to Wide Sargasso Sea awaits him. He can rant his way through it, he’s certain of it, and the professor’s not a stingy loser with their grades too, which makes him want to work on the paper because he doesn’t want to get grades he hasn’t worked for.

Wooyoung’s typing speed is far from suboptimal and he’s read the book before, so it’s not a gargantuan undertaking, he figures that he can give himself some leeway. He has the evening off at the restaurant too, since he’d asked for a day off after spending all his free time on a couple of projects that were due. An evening off means that he can afford to spend an hour or two in his room and work on the paper and use the time he has now to freely zone out.

San’s bent over his paper for his business class, the one with the grumpy professor who mailed his students with detailed critiques of whatever blunder he’s managed to whip out of the air and point out for no reason except for showing off how much he hates life.

Wooyoung will never understand how teachers like those ever found their way to the system when it was clear that they weren’t there to teach anything, that they were there just to feel like the smartest person on the planet. It’s sad that they spend hours looking at a bunch of students who don’t even try and pay attention half of the time just to get kicks from the validation given in proxy of fear. 

Wooyoung can never imagine living his life that way.

Wooyoung’s no role model either, so he figures that he shouldn’t be a hypocrite and not curse out the man in his mind any more than he deserves.

San runs his hand through his hair and groans, his head thumping against the huge textbook he has in front of him. Wooyoung stares and lets his fingers dance across the table to his hair, dragging them up to give him a head massage, a pathetic version of it at least, because contrary to the confidence Wooyoung showed when he was out, he is truly and well aware of how he’s slightly behind in terms of height which manifested in the lengths of his limbs too.

San relaxes at his touch, but not a minute later, he gets up quickly. Wooyoung retracts his hand in shock. San shoves the books in his direction and rounds the table. Wooyoung catches on to what’s happening way too late. San plops down on the seat next to his and tugs on his hand, placing it on top of his head.

“Please,” he says, eyes already half-lidded and going slightly cross-eyed with how his cheek is squished against the table.

“I could have had class,” Wooyoung says, not giving in yet.

“You have afternoons off on Fridays,” San says and it’s endearing, how he still possesses control of his cognitive skills and remembers Wooyoung’s schedule even if he’s toeing the edge of oblivion.

Wooyoung decides to indulge San and closes his books, moving them away so that he can lie down on the table facing San. He scratches San’s scalp, alternating between gentle and slightly harsher movements in a way he knows will turn his best friend to putty.

They’re seated in a corner of the library no one frequents except for the freshman from physics and Wooyoung knows that he wouldn’t complain about the display. He double taps on his phone’s screen to look at the time. 

1:15 PM.

Wooyoung decides that he’ll let San nap till 3 and wake him up to pull him to lunch at the restaurant. San definitely deserved a good meal for being so hardworking even if the professor was probably going to be a complete bitch about the paper anyway. San’s shift at the library begins at 5, so that’s enough and more time to sit down and enjoy their food, maybe let themselves banter a bit and walk back.

Wooyoung lets himself stare at the way all of San’s guards are completely down like this, probably because he knows Wooyoung will be by his side and he doesn’t have to worry about anything as long as he was. Maybe, it’s the fact that the corner is too quiet that Wooyoung’s brain deems it imperative to stare unabashedly at San.

“You’re staring,” San mumbles a beat later, like he can see through his eyelids. It’s Spiderman-level sensing and Wooyoung smothers the urge to laugh in favor of panicking.

Wooyoung tenses and goes to pull his hand away, but San covers it with his own and whines.

A light bout of laughter escapes him and he resumes carding his fingers through San’s smooth hair once again. He hasn’t taken a shower in the morning, Wooyoung knows. He had been the one to pull the other out of bed when he hadn’t responded to his calls after all. His hair still smells good though, like that sandalwood shampoo he has been using since he was in high school. Wooyoung can smell it now, the scent comforting and familiar even if Wooyoung’s nose tended to fail him more than half the time. 

It’s a blessing and curse when every inhale makes him want to pull San close and nuzzle into his neck.

Wooyoung blinks before he closes his eyes and lets his hands do something which has become muscle memory by now. It should scare him, how comfortable and unbothered he is by this, not when San’s sleeping beside him, their bodies sharing the warmth between them.

Setting an alarm despite the weird angle, his wrist aching at the contortion, Wooyoung lets himself close his eyes too and tries not to think about how this particular sight, San asleep with his pouty lips slightly parted and a small flush to his cheeks, golden hair tousled and a little greasy, would have been his reality. 

It would have been, if everything wasn’t so perfect already to scare him away from ever being greedy enough to even give it a go.

***

Wooyoung, for once in his life, doesn’t sleep straight through the alarm. He wakes up three minutes before it rings, and it’s always shocking how his brain knows to be on its best behavior when the subject involved is San. He wishes it would do him the same courtesy in other situations too, but it’s too much of a reach for his pea-sized brain, so he’s perfectly fine with this arrangement.

Grabbing the phone, he turns the alarm off. He straightens up, his arm kind of numb and achy from the angle it had been kept at while he was napping. San seems to be in deep sleep, and Wooyoung stares up at the ivory ceiling to amass the kind of motivation which would help him to wake the other up.

Wooyoung thinks that it should be illegal to look this good while asleep. Genetics has definitely blessed San generously, San’s brother was proof, but Wooyoung can’t help but feel completely enraptured by the kind of beauty that lives on his skin, the kind that’s so unique it leaves him breathless and catches him off guard even if he should be immune to San’s charms by now. It makes him shine like a beacon in the darkness and when San’s in view, everything else topples out of focus in Wooyoung’s world. He really wants to get used to it, but even here, with no hint of makeup on his face, no product in his hair, San’s _still_ the most beautiful man Wooyoung has ever laid eyes on, and he can’t help but _want_.

Desperately, shamelessly.

Sleep is still clinging and clambering over his shoulders, so he tries his best to not give into afterthoughts of guilt and chest-crushing regret at the thought of having to wake San up from what looks like the best sleep he has had this week, choosing to simply peer at him for a minute longer before he has to give in to the scheduled monotony of the real world.

When San finally wakes up with the cutest after-nap stretch possible, Wooyoung packs up their books and drags him to the restaurant. The fact that he doesn’t protest is a huge red flag that San is inching closer to a breakdown. Wooyoung’s noticed him growing clinger than usual, and it usually meant nothing good, so he lets San’s arm lock with his at the elbow and doesn’t complain about the sweltering heat of the sun even if December is looming around the corner, or the random harsh glares they receive as they walk down the street.

The owner, his boss, gives him a tilt of her head when he pushes the door open, the bell above his head jingling, San’s arm still secured to his side. He gestures towards the tables, conveying that _no_ , he didn’t appear on his _first day off_ in _two months_ to _work_ , that he’s here to treat himself and his best friend.

The owner’s not a bad person. She’s strict, certainly, and she has her rough edges, but she’s always fair. Also, not many restaurant owners would make it a point to let their employees know that they can take days off if they were not feeling their best. He would have taken her up on her offer if it didn’t mean that San would ask him to come to the library and give him company at the library during his shift. 

Wooyoung’s heart needs time to heal. To get over a crush, keep yourself away from the subject of your affection, Wooyoung has read somewhere, but that's another thing entirely because crushes didn't stay this long. Wooyoung knows _exactly_ what _this_ is.

San throws a winning smile at the woman even if Wooyoung’s pretty certain that he is half asleep. He swivels on his feet and strides towards the corner booth that patrons usually avoided because of the chipped table. 

The place isn’t packed per se, but the evening rush is only an hour away and as much as it is good for his pocket at the end of the month, it’s no lie that it will also bring shitty people in. Wooyoung doesn’t want to get the urge to go around beating up everyone who couldn’t mind their business and thought it pertinent to glare and speak under their voices if San got a little cuddly with him. They’re both tactile creatures; it’s a character trait for the both of them, but Wooyoung’s slightly more cautious in public, even if there’s nothing of the sort that should instill fear going on between the two of them.

History has pages of rage-induced breakdowns and bruised knuckles. Wooyoung’s just grateful that he doesn’t have a criminal record.

San takes the seat beside him, and Wooyoung shifts to make space for him to sit comfortably.

“When’s the paper due?” Wooyoung asks as he flips through the menu for show. He knows they’ll end up ordering their usual; kimchi jiggae, dakgangjeong and bibimbap.

San frowns at seeing him flip through the menu, there’s a hint of judgment there too, as if he’s asking why he’d do that when they’ll order the same thing anyway, but he rests his cheek on Wooyoung’s bicep anyway, pout ever-present.

“Sunday midnight,” San says. Wooyoung can feel his lips move against the thin fabric of his long-sleeved t-shirt.

“How far along are you?”

San pauses for a moment, thinking.

“Two more paragraphs and I’m done,” he says.

That was good odds. If San continued to zone out during lunch, Wooyoung could walk him to the library and wait for him while getting his work done so that they can go back to the dorms together.

One of his coworkers, Soyeon, is the one who takes their orders. She’s new, so when she glances at San clinging to his arm with an indecipherable look, he doesn’t respond, swallowing down the sharp retort he wants to let out.

San eats slower than usual, and he talks less too. They’re a usually chatty pair and silences were few and far in between when they were together, and if it wasn’t for how he could practically see the empty battery icon hovering over his best friend’s head, he would have called it a successful lunch.

“Hey, you okay?” It’s only a routine question, but Wooyoung rarely ever asked it, so he’s certain that San will understand that he’s caught on.

San shovels a piece of chicken into his mouth, cheeks bulging cutely and leans against him again. This time, Wooyoung moves his arm away and lets it curl around his thin waist.

San sighs.

“I don’t think so, Wooyoungie,” San admits, slowly chewing the chicken. Any other day, Wooyoung would have had to wrestle for the chicken, but today is different and Wooyoung wonders if dragging San to lunch was a bad call.

Wooyoung hums under his breath, feeling the way San moves his jaw as he chews against his chest.

“Wanna come over? We could watch a movie or something.” Wooyoung watches San’s eyes brighten before it dies down as if he’s realized something.

“You have to write your _paper_ ,” San says. Wooyoung wants to laugh at the way San says paper like it’s a python that has murderous intentions. He’s not exactly completely wrong.

“I’ll come to the library with you and work on it there,” Wooyoung says. If San was at the counter, then he could focus on the paper without distractions and they could walk back to the dorms together. It’s a win-win situation really.

“Are you sure?” San asks, earnest gaze peering into his own.

Wooyoung shrugs and nods, picking up a piece of chicken and opening his mouth widely for San to get the hint. San smiles, proceeding to giggle around the piece, lips tinted red with the sticky sauce before a flash of pink licks it away.

Wooyoung grabs his glass of water and downs it quickly. San looks between him and the glass, leaning over to pick up the water jug so that he can refill it for him. Wooyoung raises an eyebrow.

“You looked thirsty,” San explains, pouring the water into the glass single-handedly. His arm muscles flex noticeably through the hoodie and Wooyoung inhales as deeply as he can without running the risk of San picking up on it.

If only he _knew_.

It’s easier than he expects it to steer his mind clear of the tangent of filth it wants to drag him down into, especially when San’s slow blinks spell out an unsaid tiredness beside him. 

No God can save Wooyoung from his fate, but Wooyoung can try and make it worth it.

Wooyoung pays the bill, having won the weak fight San had put up in view of the exhaustion that was insistently dragging its sharpened claws up his best friend’s soul. San clings to him decidedly less on their way to the library. He’s talking a bit more than the long pauses which populated their conversation at the restaurant, but Wooyoung can tell that he’s draining himself dry. He stretches his arm that’s tucking San against his side and squeezes their fingers together. San halts beside him.

“Sannie, hey, it’s okay. I know you’re tired. You don’t have to pretend with me,” Wooyoung says, smiling gently. San looks at him with a bewildered look like he’s finding it impossible to believe how Wooyoung has caught him again.

Wooyoung realizes his mistake when San’s eyes shine, lips trembling as he presses them together in a last-ditch effort to stop the flood of tears.

“Hey, _hey_ , don’t cry, _please_ ,” Wooyoung pleads, heartbreak sitting on his shoulder with its front-row ticket to the show as he sputters to get San to not give in to the tears.

San smacks him on his arm and Wooyoung lets out a sigh of relief even if he doesn’t know why he’s getting attacked. The confusion must show on his face because San smooths his soft hand over his arm.

“Stop being so nice to me, you dick,” San mumbles, pressing close and taking what Wooyoung is pretty sure is a whiff of his scent. His heart is speeding up like it’s a horse in a race. Wooyoung thinks that he just might self-combust at this rate.

“I’m a dick for not wanting to see the most important person in my life cry?” Wooyoung asks and regrets his words as soon as he says it. San tenses against him before he relaxes and it feels like the longest and most agonizing pause Wooyoung has ever had to endure.

“Me too,” San says, looking up at him. Wooyoung’s shorter than him, but San’s hunching to cling to him, so the result is that Wooyoung gets to literally look _down_ at him and it’s undeniably a glorious sight.

“Me too what?” He teases even if he knows what San means.

“Dick,” San says, poking a lean finger into his ribs. Wooyoung chuckles and holds him closer, and he really shouldn’t read into it, but San sighs contently and Wooyoung’s heart flops to the ground like he is a lovesick teenager all over again.

***

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Wooyoung finishes the paper in two hours. He needs to proofread it, but it isn’t due for another day, and he has his priorities arranged in a painstakingly straight line, so he spends the rest of the time following San around as he leaves the front desk to look for some books that the students can’t find. 

As the hours go by, the number of students who’re looking for books reduces exponentially, and Wooyoung goes to the pain of sitting in the reading area near the entrance at San’s insistence. He might be a social butterfly, but even he needed time to charge his battery. Fortunately, there aren’t any students he knows by name here. He nods at the guy who helped him arrange the drama fest last year when he waves at him before he settles down, Wide Sargasso Sea open in front of him as a device that hopefully conveys that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone except San. The sounds of people flipping pages at random intervals grates on his ears. San throws him a knowing look and smothers a laugh in his fist behind the granite front desk. 

Wooyoung feels conflicted between walking to the counter and putting San in a chokehold for laughing at his expense and kissing the laugh right out of his mouth. 

The way Wooyoung is whipped for San doesn’t seem like something that would go away anytime soon, but in his humble opinion, loving his best friend till the end of time didn’t seem half bad.

In fact, it is probably the best thing he could ever do for himself.

Wooyoung knows that he doesn’t really need San’s permission to love him, but his stupid brain insists that he needs it. He sighs to himself, but winks at San anyway when he looks up from the register to make eye contact, the laugh from before dying out in favor of the exhaustion creeping around him. San gives him a smile instead, softer now, and Wooyoung can’t help but think of blanket forts and crayon paintings in the dim yellow light of San’s home. 

Wooyoung has always thought that if someone were to figure out his feelings for San and confronted him with it, he wouldn’t be able to point out a particular point in time of their friendship and say that _hey, that was it, that was when I fell hard_. It isn’t that simple, and then moments like this happen and it tacks on to the evidence to the possibility of having fallen for San ages before he even realized it himself. 

It's young love. His _first_ love.

Sometimes, when Wooyoung’s heart aches at denying San’s request to walk him to the dorm as he pulls the veil over his feelings with a bro punch, or when he tells him that he has work even when he knows he can easily take a day off, watching San’s face fall makes him think that he truly might be his _only_ love because his heart hurts then, like someone has taken a ring dagger and carved it out.

It’s a terrifying thought, one that hits him out of nowhere some days and plagues him for weeks before he can successfully distract himself from it. Even then, it lingers at the back of his mind, ready to pounce on him and leave him floundering for days.

By the time Wooyoung snaps himself out of it, San’s packing up behind the counter. His shift is only till midnight on Fridays. The guy from San’s business class throws him a salute before he playfully shoves San away from the counter. 

Wooyoung quietly closes his book and stuffs it in his backpack as San saunters to him, looping his fingers with his without hesitation like there’s nothing painful about this. Wooyoung _wishes_ he was this oblivious.

They stop at the diner on campus to grab some pizza and drinks. San’s hand in his is sweaty and bordering on uncomfortable and if it was anyone else, Wooyoung would have let go a long time ago, but that’s the thing, it isn’t any random person, it’s _San_.

It’s crazy how all of Wooyoung’s problems begin and end with that conclusion. An endless cycle of why he should do what he shouldn’t and vice versa. 

Wooyoung’s roommate is staying at his girlfriend’s apartment tonight, so it’s easier to have San over without dealing with the knowing looks he would give him. However, Wooyoung’s grateful for the open-mindedness and the unspoken impasse they’ve arrived at which stated that whatever Wooyoung did with San wouldn’t be questioned or discussed between the two of them or with anyone else. Wooyoung wonders if he looked that pathetic and weak that even his roommate who has only known him for a year and a half after Seonghwa moved out with Hongjoong, decided to avoid confrontation.

San doesn’t let his hands go even as Wooyoung is putting the key into the lock. It’s a weird angle because he’s shoving the key in with his left hand, but San pointedly stares at his hand in a silent challenge, daring him to move it away and does nothing else. Wooyoung wants to shrug San’s grip off, but he can’t, not when he feels the way he does for his best friend.

“Where’s your roommate?” San asks. The lock clicks open as if whichever deity is on the shift to look after him today has decided to take mercy on him and listen to his desperate pleas.

“At his girlfriend’s place,” Wooyoung says, toeing his shoes off and turning around to switch the lights on when the room suddenly lights up, San smiling at him, his hands dragging down the wall before he turns away and walks inside.

Wooyoung gulps. Perhaps it’s the fact that the last time San was here was two weeks ago, but has somehow still managed to figure out the position of the switchboard even in the pitch-black darkness. It doesn’t help that the familiarity with which San wades through his roommate’s side of the room to get to Wooyoung’s makes him want to open the door and challenge his sporty self from back in high school to give his lungs a run for their money. 

But that’s just Wooyoung being a coward, a word he’d never used to describe himself until this whole deal happened and he fell head first, knees bruising, heart bleeding, in love with his best friend. He inhales deeply, steeling his nerves and shrugs the bag off of his shoulder before plopping down on the bed with the laptop as San takes the takeout bag and sets it down at the foot of the bed.

San fiddles with the sleeves of his hoodie. Wooyoung scoots away from the wall and pats the mattress in invitation, opening the lid of the laptop. San looks at him for a moment too long. Wooyoung looks back at him as the laptop boots, raising an eyebrow, patting the mattress again, chest pounding as the thought dawns that maybe San’s uncomfortable even if movie nights where they cram together into Wooyoung’s single bed is a common thing for them.

“San?” He calls, ready to ask what’s happening. San breaks eye contact and looks down at the floor instead. It takes a second later than usual for him to figure out what is wrong.

Wooyoung nearly throws the laptop onto the bed and pushes himself off the edge. He cradles San’s face in his hands and leans down to look at him.

“Sannie, hey,” Wooyoung calls softly. San’s crying, big drops of iridescent tears falling down his cheeks and dropping to the ground from his chin. He can feel tears well up in his own eyes at the way he’s shaking slightly.

“Sannie, look at me, hey.” Wooyoung loses all the breath in his lungs when San looks up at him, red-eyed and blotchy-skinned before he breaks down completely, falling into his arms like he’s certain that Wooyoung wouldn’t let him crumple to the ground.

Wooyoung turns his face into San’s neck and presses reassurances into his skin, lips moving against slightly salty skin. San doesn’t put his arms around him, like he can’t even bring himself up to do that. Wooyoung’s used to this though, so he lets him be, lets his palms stroke his back, tracing the ridges of his spine which protrude a little when he’s hunched over in his arms like this.

Wooyoung knows this isn’t about him, but it’s out of his control when his tears soak the side of San’s neck. He doesn’t even know what is wrong, and it’s testament to how much he loves San, how it’s physically impossible for him to ever see his best friend hurt.

“Youngie,” San says, and even if his voice is merely a breath, Wooyoung can feel how fond he is of him. It makes him want to break into tears for an entirely different reason. 

“Why are you crying?” San asks, still crying in his arms.

They’re a mess. It’s not the first time this has happened, and Wooyoung knows for certain that it definitely isn’t going to be the last. Here, where he’s holding San tightly against his chest as he cries along with him, Wooyoung’s mind flashes back to a time when they were seventeen, when uni applications were being sent out with enthusiasm, how they’d spent days clinging to each other and randomly broke out into tears at the mere consideration of the possibility of them having to separate if they got into different colleges.

There’s a flood of memories which roars into the front of his mind, Wooyoung scrambling to shove them aside to answer San.

“Because _you’re_ crying,” Wooyoung replies, and it’s easy to say it because it’s true. San lets out a wet laugh and it tugs at Wooyoung’s heart so painfully that he bites his teeth even if it’s just him being an emotional mess.

“Tell me what’s wrong?” He asks, their faces still pressed into the crook of their necks, San’s gentle breaths warm against his skin.

“I just… I think all I do is work and study. I… I feel like there’s so much more I should be doing. We only have a year left in uni and I feel like I’ve… he said I…”

San takes a shuddering breath, slumping a little more against Wooyoung than he already is.

“Who said what?” Wooyoung asks, voice suddenly venomous. He scares even himself a little with the anger that seizes hold of him even if he has no idea who the person San is talking about or what he’s said. 

It scares him how he’ll move the world for San. It scares him right down to his core.

“Wooyoungie,” San stutters out.

San pats his ribs and Wooyoung lets him go, following him as he entwines their fingers and walks to the bed, sitting down. He looks up at Wooyoung and scoots closer to him when he sits down.

“It’s just a guy from class. He was just joking around.”

He clearly _wasn’t_ joking around if San broke into tears. Wooyoung hears the sharpening of a metaphorical dagger in his head.

“Which guy?” Wooyoung asks, fingers stroking San’s knuckles. San looks down at their hands and softly smiles.

Wooyoung’s heart is prone to distractions, especially if something is even remotely related to San and it’s almost impossible when his mind also follows quickly in allegiance. Wooyoung’s also incredibly scatterbrained when it comes to certain things that it always makes his heart ache when San pulls all his undivided attention to him by doing the bare minimum.

He’s talented and he’s lovely. He’s gorgeous and he’s nice.

He’s perfect really, but he’s his friend. His _best friend_.

His best friend who was having an issue Wooyoung didn’t know about. He couldn’t possibly let that carry on.

“San, which guy?” Wooyoung repeats.

“The one from my economics class. He’s just… he said that my _choices_ make it hard for me to have fun. That he… that he would _help_ if I just asked, just because I’m _pretty_.”

San lets out a humorless chuckle and the sound drags against Wooyoung’s sensitive heart. He wants to choke the guy and obliterate him into pieces till he’s nothing but dust. It made sense that San would be so bothered about this. He hadn’t had the easiest time after coming out in high school. Wooyoung hadn’t figured out he was bi himself until the summer before his senior year, all thanks to San and his affections finally letting him arrive at the conclusion that perhaps the protectiveness and clinginess he indulged in wasn’t a bro thing, wasn’t purely platonic _at all_ in fact. 

High school sucked, but they’d survived through it, looking out for each other. College would be the same. Wooyoung had made sure of it then and he will continue to do so. If they’d survived the hormonal tantrums of teenagers together, they could get through life among assholes with a glaring lack of a brain and a practiced indifference towards other people’s emotions.

Wooyoung’s anger is justified. Even if it wasn’t, as long as it is something that involves San, he doesn’t care.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me? When did he say that? Did he do something else?”

San leans into him, his head resting on Wooyoung’s chest. It’s muscle memory at this point to card his fingers through his hair. He resists the urge to lean down and kiss his head, even though he knows San would appreciate it. Wooyoung can only do so much without putting his heart underwater again.

“Yesterday. You were at work, Young-ah, and you don’t take days off usually, so I figured I’d ignore it, but it was bothering me so much. I’m sorry.”

Wooyoung wants to smack himself on the head. Of course he’d thought he’d been busy. He could have easily taken a day off if San had told him about this. 

Being his best friend is the only thing he could be and if he fails in this, Wooyoung doesn’t know what his place is in San’s life.

“Why are you apologizing, you idiot?” Wooyoung asks. San pulls away to look at him.

“You’re not mad?” He asks, eyes wide and sparkling.

“Of course, I’m mad! I wanna get a road roller and drive over him and leave him as roadkill on a highway!” Wooyoung hisses.

San’s cautious when he speaks next. “You’re not mad at _me_?”

Wooyoung frowns, trying to make a connection and failing badly at it. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“For not telling you.” San’s eyes are welling up with tears again, and Wooyoung wants to hide him away from the world, he really does. Surely there must be a rule against being this good looking even when you were flushed red from crying.

“I know now, don’t I?” Wooyoung asks, voice light. He blinks and he has an armful of sobbing-giggling San. He smiles at the poster of BTS on his wall, mentally making a note to himself to confront a certain someone.

“You’re living your life the way you want to. He’s an asshole for saying that because shitty people like him can’t see how perfect you are. Pretty and intelligent? He _wishes_ he could be on your level. You’re the real deal, San.”

San smiles at him, batting at his chest lightly with his fists, embarrassed. Wooyoung lets him.

They don’t end up watching the movie, shoveling down pizza instead and sipping cola. Wooyoung burps and San laughs loudly, pushing him down on the bed, demanding to be cuddled.

Wooyoung wants to ask him to get off of him, to change into their sleepwear, he has a couple of San’s clothes in his closet for nights when San stays over, but San’s warm against him and way too comfortable than he’d like to admit, so he lifts one hand and stretches it out without looking at San. San giggles as he cuddles close to him with his head on the fleshy part of his arm, wiggling around to find the perfect position, sighing in content when he finally does.

“Comfy?” Wooyoung asks, eyes stinging from the lack of sleep and crying.

“Very,” San tells him and he sounds like he’s already halfway into dreamland.

Wooyoung closes his eyes and pretends like he doesn’t notice how San’s breathing syncs up with his.

***

Wooyoung’s not as hot-headed as people liked to think he was, but it’s true that his threshold for tolerating annoying things isn’t very high. He and Hongjoong weren’t voted the most likely to maul someone out of anger in their uni group for nothing.

Monday comes quickly, much to his disappointment and delight. Wooyoung really shouldn’t bother, but he’s already called Mingi, asking for help with the guy from San’s class. He can say what he wants to without anyone to support him, but the guy’s at least a head and a half taller than him. Having Mingi there would paint a much more intimidating picture. He doesn’t think he can handle being called a ball of fury by a frat boy wannabe with an obvious lack of manners without wanting to suffocate him to death.

Wooyoung’s not stupid either, and as much as he has his stamina and some generous muscles thanks to his stint with the track team back in high school, he definitely can’t take down a bunch of guys without support in case the situation got out of control. So, Mingi is a buffer to keep his cool and to remind himself of how he doesn’t want to let the situation escalate to a point where the cops would get involved.

As complicated as things would get if the situation did veer out of control, Wooyoung knows that letting things slide wouldn’t benefit San in any way. It’s that thought which has made him plot this confrontation. He’s proud of himself for not breaking down the door to the asshole’s place and screeching at him on Friday night itself.

It’s not that San needed someone to defend his honor for him. He was trained in Taekwondo and could land a mean right hook, but there were some things only Wooyoung could do for him, things Wooyoung _should_ do for him because he is his best friend first and foremost, and because friends look out for each other.

Mingi finger guns at him as he walks to him. Wooyoung shoves the phone down his pocket and waves at him, internally fist-pumping the air for having resisted the urge to return Mingi’s finger guns and not make it obvious of how perfectly he fits inside the stereotypical bi box. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Mingi asks and his morning voice is deep and gravelly, like he’s using some kind of voice distorter like Youtubers did in prank videos. It’s part of his charm even though Wooyoung will _never_ tell him that. 

“We go up to him, we talk and try our best to not punch the guy in the face,” Wooyoung says grimly. Mingi listens attentively.

“And then you buy me breakfast,” Mingi says. Wooyoung laughs and shakes his head.

“And then I buy you breakfast, you big baby,” Wooyoung promises, patting Mingi on his back. 

“I’m not a big baby,” Mingi says, offended. Wooyoung knows for a _fact_ that Mingi _loves_ being called a big baby.

“You are one, princess,” Wooyoung replies, and he can see the flush take over Mingi’s face at the twice-in-a-row attack. It’s unfair how stereotypes work, he thinks, because anyone who saw Mingi would never take him for the softest boy in the world, never really trying to see past his intense gaze at strangers, his whole tall and handsome deal and his voice which was deeper than the ocean.

Wooyoung’s taking advantage of the very same thing at the moment, so he might be a hypocrite for saying that, but it is what it is. 

“I’m gonna kill Yunho,” Mingi says, obviously referring to how his boyfriend has leaked his weaknesses.

“If it’s worth anything, we tickled it out of him,” Wooyoung admits, sprinting ahead even if he knows Mingi will catch up with his long-ass legs. 

Mingi unlocks his phone and looks down at the screen, scrolling through it and pausing at the picture of the guy. Wooyoung lifts himself on his toes to get a better look, Mingi lowering the phone without insulting his height, probably because he knows that nothing about this is funny.

Yeosang had been courteous enough to give them the guy’s schedule for Monday. Wooyoung has no idea where Yeosang gets this kind of information, but there’s an unspoken vow in their group to never question Yeosang’s cryptid tendencies, especially when he never denies any of their requests. Wooyoung’s just grateful for the information.

Wooyoung looks around the square, catching the guy lounging with three other guys, their boisterous peals of laughter resounding even in the open air. Even if the details Yeosang had given them already stated this particular detail, it still surprises Wooyoung when he sees that the guy’s wearing a letterman jacket of the football team. No wonder why he was a complete dick, Wooyoung thinks, but he knows better than to generalize. Jongho and Yunho were on the rugby team, and Mingi was on the ice hockey team after all, and they were the _biggest_ marshmallows. 

Well, unless they were _provoked._

Mingi gestures at the guy with his chin and Wooyoung nods, confirming and letting his feet take him to the other end of the square, Mingi following close behind him. He is mentally planning what to say when the guy catches them approaching. His laugh turns into a cocky smirk.

“Who do we have here?” The guy says and Wooyoung frowns. He wasn’t prepared for this particular shift in plan. 

How did the guy know him?

“Here to defend your twink boyfriend?” The guy says, voice adopting a different register which makes him sound like a child. It’s clearly meant to be mocking and Wooyoung _seethes_.

Somehow, the first thing that leaps to the forefront of his mind is the part where the guy called San his boyfriend when he isn’t, but he can clarify that later, after he’s said what he came here to say.

“Okay, listen here you dipshit, I came here to have a civil conversation and to ask you to apologize to him but clearly you’re a dick, so I’m just gonna ask you to stop messing with San.” 

Wooyoung’s fists are clenched tight, but he can practically hear Mingi asking him to rein himself in from beside him. The guy grits his teeth and glares. Wooyoung sees one of the guys try to size Mingi up before shifting uncomfortably, clearly intimidated.

“Or what?” The guy clicks his tongue and tilts his head towards his friends with a cocky grin.

“Or I’ll report you for targeted harassment and ragging on campus which I’m pretty sure is enough to get you kicked out of the football team. Wouldn’t want the big teams and their coaches to reject you because you have bully written all over you, do we?”

The guy leaps forward towards him. Wooyoung doesn’t even flinch.

“Is that a threat, asshole?” The guy spits, features contorting with rage.

“It is,” he spits in a tone that says that he’s got hell coming for him if he doesn’t listen to him, “and you better stop with the name-calling too. He is my best friend and if I catch you calling him a twink again, this is going straight to the authorities. Touch a hair on his head and I’ll make you regret it forever.”

Wooyoung pivots on his heels and exhales. “Let’s go, Mingi.”

Mingi nods, falling into step beside him.

“Does he scream your name when you fuck him? He looks like a screamer,” the guy says and it doesn’t sound as cocky or confident as he wants it to, just like something he’d felt obligated to say just to have the last word.

 _Wrong_ fucking _move_.

Wooyoung doesn’t even think twice before he spins around and punches the guy in his jaw, tackling him to the ground, furious. His friends shout and jump out of their seats, but out of the corner of his eye he catches Mingi raise a finger and point it at them. They freeze and the guy tilts his head to look at them for help, struggling under him when he sees that no one is coming.

Wooyoung places his forearm flat on the guy’s neck and presses down hard enough to hurt.

“That is none of _your_ business. There’s nothing stopping me from fucking you up, right here, right now. You apologize to San in class today and no one will know what happened, but you so much as look at him the wrong way, I _will_ know and you’ll wish you never even knew he existed. Got it?” 

Wooyoung glares until the guy nods, shivering when Wooyoung gets off of him. Mingi puts his hands down his pockets, walking behind him and Wooyoung knows that it’s just a precaution just in case they decide to try something when their backs are turned. He’s grateful to Mingi, but he can feel panic seize hold of his windpipe. 

When they finally reach the space where they usually chill behind the liberal arts department, concrete benches scattered around, Wooyoung sits down on the nearest one and leans forward with his head in his hands.

Mingi pats his back gently until Wooyoung has calmed down enough as if he’s aware of exactly why Wooyoung feels like he wants to throw up.

“Mingi, do you… do you think people talk to San like that all the time?” Wooyoung asks, fearing the answer, breathing finally back to normal. 

Wooyoung has had flings, one-night stands from their club visits, mostly girls he’d picked up only so that he can forget San’s face and his throbbing heart for a while, but he’d stopped the practice soon enough when he’d discovered that the heartache and guilt in the morning after weren’t worth it. 

San though, was a whole different story. Like Wooyoung, he’s had his flings, the only difference was that they were all boys pertaining to the fact that he was, you know, gay. He also had had a three-month-long relationship back when they were freshmen with a guy who was a senior at the time.

It was San’s second relationship since the one in high school when he dated one of their classmates for a week before they broke up. However, besides the obvious pain that both of those relationships caused Wooyoung, he’s well aware that the one in college wasn’t received favorably by some of their peers, not that San needed approval from anyone to date who he wanted to. 

Wooyoung had seen the stares and though he’d expected college to be better, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when San told him that people were talking. It was an amicable breakup, something about them that wasn’t clicking and the gnawing in his chest had seized when San finally said that they were done, even if the guilt Wooyoung felt for feeling happy about it was a whole other monster that he had to deal with on his own.

Though the relationship was over, the repercussions it had brought were noticeable. San was not the only gay guy in their uni, but somehow, maybe it was his borderline timid nature or his aloofness or his natural charm when he was comfortable, Wooyoung had noticed the appreciative stares and the unreasonable glares equally, but no one had dared to do or say anything negative when he was present. San was hit on by guys a lot too, and Wooyoung would watch him coyly smile and let them down gently, making sure no harsh feelings were involved. 

Not many people knew about his own preferences though, not that Wooyoung was hiding it intentionally or was ashamed of it. It was just that he didn’t think that he could handle looking at a boy who wasn’t San.

Nothing much had happened in the last two years though, except for some random wolf whistles which died down quickly thanks to some interference from Jongho and Yunho. This particular incident though, it made Wooyoung’s stomach churn at the possibility of San hearing things he shouldn’t have to deal with in the first place and keeping it in.

“I don’t know,” Mingi says and he sounds honest.

“What if people are being shitty to him and he didn’t tell me and this was the last straw?” Wooyoung says, voice raising in frustration as he turns to direct the question at Mingi.

Mingi’s gaze rakes over his face. “You’re his best friend, Wooyoung. If no one else, _you_ would have known if something happened,” he assures, sounding so painfully certain that it makes Wooyoung’s eyes sting.

“But what if he’s hiding it from me? Oh God, what if he thought that I wouldn’t handle it well?”

“Wooyoung,” Mingi calls, voice dripping with certainty, “We’re talking about San here. There’s not much that he can hide from you except… _No_ , the point is that if people are being rude to him, he wouldn’t have been able to hide it from you because you’ve known each other since you were kids. You’ve quite literally grown up together and as tenacious and unyielding as San is when he wants to be, he can’t hold a front with you, not for this long, just like you can’t with him. Hell, you know how long it takes for his hair to grow out and it doesn’t terrify him because that’s your _thing_ , you look out for each other, you know things about each other that other people will never know and that means that you guys just… _you_ would _know_ instantly if something was wrong.” 

Mingi looks at him with slightly wide eyes, like he’s hoping Wooyoung understands where he’s getting at. Wooyoung nods, feeling reassured and warm and also simultaneously wanting to smack himself for being guilty of sometimes forgetting how aside from his daily antics and loud laughter, Mingi was a thoughtful and intelligent person, one who cared about them and loved them deeply.

They really truly did hit the jackpot with their friends at uni.

“Now, buy me breakfast or I’ll eat your arm.”

Wooyoung wipes a hand over his face and chuckles, letting himself be tugged towards the cafeteria.

***

San is waiting for him at the corridor when he comes out of his last class for the day, world literature. It catches him off guard because San usually waits under the tree in front of the economics department because the world literature class is on the third floor, and he would always complain about not wanting to climb three flights of stairs for him. 

Wooyoung has barely opened his mouth to ask him why he didn’t wait where he usually does when San pulls him in close and hugs him tightly, melting in his hold. Wooyoung is still stunned, but he strokes San’s back before trying to pull away. 

San doesn’t let him.

“You didn’t have to, but thank you. _Thank you_ ,” San whispers into his ear, his lips touching the cool metal of Wooyoung’s dragon earring. Wooyoung barely suppresses a shiver.

“It’s nothing,” Wooyoung says. “Did he apologize?” He asks to clarify.

“He did,” San confirms and finally frees him from the embrace. The warmth is leeched away so quickly that Wooyoung feels a phantom pain in his chest.

San grabs his right hand, knuckles a maroon-red from the morning. 

“You’re an idiot.” San’s fingers are feather-light over the tender bruises.

“Hey!” Wooyoung calls, offended.

“You could have been suspended if someone caught you,” San says, and Wooyoung can tell how divided he feels between wanting to show his gratitude and worrying for him.

“I weighed my options before I left,” Wooyoung says, cradling San’s elbow absently. 

“ _Of course you did_. Who came with you?” San asks, tugging his sleeve and walking backwards when students weave around them to get to the next class.

“Mingi,” Wooyoung says, eyes momentarily catching on the freckles over San’s neck.

San nods, looping their arms like he usually did and tugs him along.

Wooyoung tries to focus on San’s detailed and animated description of the guy’s apology, but it’s hard to focus on words when San is the walking-talking definition of sunshine. He hears that a lot about himself, and maybe he is, but San’s a whole different level of brightness, and the best part was that Wooyoung was the only one privileged enough to see it in all its glory, almost like San didn’t particularly care what people thought about him, just what Wooyoung did.

San nudges him, giving him a knowing look that says that he was aware of Wooyoung zoning out. Wooyoung smiles and gives him an apologetic look. 

San rolls his eyes and starts all over again.

***

Wooyoung shrieks as Mingi skates over the ice, hockey stick firmly in his hands, spinning like a fucking _ballerina_ as he passes the puck to the player on the other end, wading out of the way of the player who’d been marking him consistently. He catches San smile in apology at the girl in front of them. 

Wooyoung doesn’t even spare her a glance. He had paid money to see the game and he was going to scream all he wanted. That was his friend who was killing it out there. He turns to the other side, smiling at seeing Yunho do the same next to Jongho.

This was Mingi’s comeback game after a hiatus of three months because of some issues with his back. He’d known that Mingi was having a hard time keeping away from the rink. In fact, everyone in the gang had known that, silently agreeing to not mentioning anything related to the game if Mingi was present. But his physiotherapist had cleared him for playing for the inter-university game and Wooyoung had been ecstatic, going so far as to take the day off from work to go see the game.

Wooyoung fist pumps the air as Mingi swiftly turns around, the puck stolen right from between the other team’s defenceman’s moving skates. Mingi, though he’s not the most graceful, is probably the fastest player they have on the rink and speed usually was what won the game for their university every year. Wooyoung watches as Mingi takes off with the puck up the wing and he cheers, waving the banner in his hand wildly.

Mingi skids, losing balance for a moment and Wooyoung’s heart stutters in fear, absently registering San’s hand squeezing his bicep. Mingi recovers with a back skate and passes the puck to one of the players from his team who skates by. He flips it over to another one and the player’s wrist flicks, and Wooyoung jumps in excitement at the taste of the bar down he sees coming. 

San’s grip is still a tether to the physical world, the crowd’s cheers booming in his ears. University games were a huge deal, after all, selectors from various regions and national coaches watching closely for potential players to join the professional league games. 

Mingi is still skating behind his team, wading around as they pass the puck between them, making sure to get close to the net. The other team’s marking skills are insane, and Wooyoung thinks they’re about to score when the puck goes to the other team in a slight miscalculation. He yells in frustration, San laughing beside him even if he sounds nervous as well. 

What Wooyoung doesn’t expect is for Mingi to swoop in out of nowhere, instead of assuming the backchecking formation they usually fell into when the other team was in possession of the puck. Their team catches on quickly, flanking Mingi and skating in criss-cross patterns to take the attention off of him.

Wooyoung blinks and there’s a deafening roar of applause.

_Bardown!_

They just _won_ the fucking game. Mingi just hit the puck right into the net and scored a goal for them. 

_What a day!_

Wooyoung feels euphoria hit him like a truck.

Next to him, San’s mouth is moving, but Wooyoung can’t hear a damn thing. He screams Mingi’s name and throws the banner to the ground, turning around and lifting San off his feet, adrenaline rush peaking. 

San bats at his shoulders in embarrassment and Wooyoung laughs in genuine happiness, letting the other slide down, his hands still around his waist. San’s smile wobbles, nervous for some reason and Wooyoung leans forward, eyes glancing between his best friend’s pupils. 

Yeosang slaps him on his shoulder with a roll of his eyes as he walks past them to get to Mingi. Wooyoung lets San go like he's on fire.

San’s smile this time is almost tender instead of the shock he expects, and suddenly, Wooyoung feels like he’s missing a piece he isn’t supposed to.

But it’s out of sight and out of mind as Jongho drags him down the steps, shrieking along with him as they lift Mingi up before Yunho can get his long-ass arms around his boyfriend.

Mingi laughs before he makes grabby arms for Yunho, helmet and the rest of his skating gear still on except for his skating shoes.

Wooyoung loops his arms with San and follows the rest of the gang outside. San’s still tired from the cramming he’d done the night before, but he’d been adamant in not missing the game, so Wooyoung hadn’t stopped him when he said he was coming.

“Let’s go get dinner. My treat,” Seonghwa says, leaning against the hood of his car like he is posing for some photoshoot.

Seonghwa had been a sophomore when they joined and had immediately adopted them on that day at the cafeteria when Wooyoung lost his grip over his chocolate milk and spilled it over the older man. Slowly but surely, all eight of them had come together and Seonghwa had assumed the role of the parent figure in their group without even them noticing. It helped that Seonghwa’s parents were loaded too because whenever they all met up, he made it a point to pay for all of them. 

None of them were quite like broke college students though, coming from well-off families and good parents, but it was nice to have someone take care of them anyway. The fact that Seonghwa looked happy doing it was another thing. 

“It’s _always_ your treat,” Hongjoong says, leaning next to Seonghwa as they wait for Mingi to shower and come out. Seonghwa shrugs.

Wooyoung raises an eyebrow at the look Hongjoong gives him after staring at San who was resting his head on his shoulder.

“Is he okay?” Hongjoong asks.

“He’s right here,” San says. Wooyoung laughs. “He’s fine. Just tired, aren’t you, Sannie?” Wooyoung asks, pinching his cheek despite the weird angle. His skin is soft. 

The adrenaline has died down by now, which means that he’s once again hyper-aware of everything San does, and it does things to his heart when San nods against his neck, fluffy blond hair tickling his collarbone and jaw.

When Wooyoung looks up, the gang is staring at them silently. Yeosang lets out a long-suffering sigh and gets into the car, slamming the door shut like he was done with their bullshit.

“Who died and made him boss?” Wooyoung asks, confused. San relaxes his grip on him as he straightens up at the loud noise.

“You’re an idiot,” Yunho tells him sagely before looking at San, “You too.”

“Hey! Why are we getting attacked all of a sudden?” Wooyoung shouts.

No one answers him. 

***

Dinner is mostly just Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho discussing the game with special audio effects courtesy of their mouths. Hongjoong throws a tissue at them at one point, but before Wooyoung can react, Jongho puts the elder in a chokehold.

“Children,” Hongjoong says, rubbing at his neck when Jongho finally lets him go.

“More like demons,” Seonghwa says under his breath.

“Careful,” Yeosang says, “I know where you sleep.”

The conversation takes off in that direction and as they're leaving after a toast to Mingi with their ill-timed lemonade, Wooyoung feels content. San looks alert too, the exhaustion from before only just a barely present thing on his face now. 

He’d begun the night talking to Yeosang in hushed tones before his voice had steadily gained strength. Wooyoung had caught bits and pieces about economics class and a cafe which had opened up right outside the campus before he was pulled back to the conversation about the game.

It was nice to see that San felt better though. 

Wooyoung blows air into his palms. They had politely turned down Seonghwa’s offer for a ride. Hongjoong had a test the day after and the couple lived off-campus, so it didn’t seem right to take him up on it when they could just walk back to the dorms. The group had split into three, San and Wooyoung to the dorms, Seonghwa and Hongjoong to their apartment and the others to the convenience store.

Wooyoung exhales as they walk down the street, the air in front of him fogging up. San laughs when he repeats the action. He's cold to the point that Wooyoung can see his nose turn red at the tip. The insides of his palm itch with the urge to touch San, but he’s walking a step ahead of him, still laughing, pausing when Wooyoung whines out a “ _What_?”

San shakes his head fondly. “It’s just funny. Reminds me of that time when we waited for the first snow and woke up outside sick and freezing.”

It was decidedly not very funny for their parents, but Wooyoung laughs anyway. 

God, they really _were_ idiots, weren’t they?

“Young-ah, do you want to try out that new cafe which opened up down the street?” 

It's quite a sudden offer, but Wooyoung doesn’t see why not, so he nods. 

“When though?”

San’s lips jut out in a natural pout as he thinks about it, lips wet and pink as he bites the corner of it into his mouth. 

Dragging his gaze away from San is perhaps the hardest thing Wooyoung has ever done. San though, seems to be completely unaware of how Wooyoung’s stomach is turning with guilt because he puts a hand around his shoulder and shakes him like he’s a rag doll.

“Tomorrow!” San says, wide grin making his eyes crinkle. It makes Wooyoung want to rip his heart out and throw it away and never even _try_ to touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Wooyoung’s arms betray him as they curl around San’s waist. Walking should be a task in the position they’re in, but the years they have spent together always showed in little things like this, in how easily San falls into step with him, in how they don’t have to stop to sync their pace.

Wooyoung wishes he could stay in the moment and live it up, but there’s a prick of conscience which asks him to pull his hand away.

“You’re warm,” San says, nuzzling closer which shouldn’t even be possible considering that they have no space between them at all.

 _Fuck it_ , Wooyoung thinks, and doesn’t release his grip around him until they’ve reached the dorms and San walks him to his room.

***

Wooyoung wakes up to a whispered _happy birthday_ and a chaste kiss on his forehead. 

_Of course_ , Wooyoung thinks. It was practically tradition at this point for San to be the first person to wish him on his birthday.

San’s grin is bright and fond when he pulls away, and it makes him want to leap out the window and never look back. It’s kind of funny how they had seen each other literally two hours ago. San was always too good at hiding things from him if he really wanted to because contrary to popular belief and despite everything Wooyoung knew about San, he knew that he could be dense as fuck when it came down to things related to him.

“Thank you, Sannie,” Wooyoung says and he has barely managed to sit up when his phone starts ringing with calls from the gang. San sits on his bed and stares at him as he listens to the cacophony of voices screaming birthday wishes at him, putting his phone down only to pick it back up when his mom calls.

They had decided last year that parties took the impact away from birthdays and as loud and obnoxious as they were, they preferred the intimacy and warmth of just the gang and random wishes from friends on Facebook who probably got the notification from the platform.

Back in high school, Wooyoung used to think that he’d be the life of the party, but over the course of the years at uni, he’s learned much more about himself than he ever thought he would and in the process, he has also come to realize how wrong he was about certain things.

By the time Wooyoung hangs up the phone after talking to his parents, San has turned around and lit the candles on what looks like a vanilla and strawberry fresh cream cake.

San’s face glows in the candlelight.

Wooyoung can’t help but think that San is the best gift life could ever have given him. Perhaps it’s good karma from a past life or just a matter of unusually stellar luck, whatever it is that brought San to him, Wooyoung thanks those forces and blows on the candles. He doesn't wish for anything. 

San pokes the cake with a finger, cream gathered on the tip and offers him his finger. Wooyoung shakes his head to get rid of the thoughts which are damning and licks the cream off his finger. San digs the same finger into the cake again and Wooyoung gulps as his best friend puts the finger in his own mouth and wipes it clean.

Another year older, but Wooyoung’s still stuck right where he was when he realized his feelings for San went beyond what was expected of a friendship.

“Is it good?” San asks, starry-eyed and fluffy-haired, soft smile tugging his lips up.

Wooyoung takes the cake from his hands and sets it aside to yank him into a tight hug, nodding into his shoulder, San’s chuckles reverberating in his veins.

San gives him a pair of wireless headphones as his birthday gift, but all Wooyoung can do is feel giddy at the way San’s hands haven’t left him since he wished him at midnight.

***

San’s practically bouncing on his feet when he comes out of his economics class. Wooyoung shifts his feet before he pushes away from where he was leaning against the railing, waiting for San’s class to finish.

“Someone’s excited,” Wooyoung says, laughing when San shoves him lightly.

“It’s your _birthday_ and Yeosang said that their drinks are to die for,” San says, eyes wide like that cat gif he kept sending them in the group chat. 

Wooyoung huffs out a laugh.

Yeosang’s approval for cafes was rare because his chicken-motivated brain refused to be kind to any place which didn’t serve his favorite dish, so Wooyoung figures that the place must be great if it made even Yeosang pull his head out of his ass and recommend it.

“It would be pretty lame if I died from drinking a frappe,” Wooyoung counters, just because he’s in the mood for banter and San looks happier than he’s been the entire week.

“Jung Wooyoung, 21 years old, cause of death white chocolate raspberry milkshake,” San says in a monotone voice like he’s one of those newsreaders in the morning who always sound like they would prefer to be anywhere but there in the studio reading the events of the world when they don’t give a single fuck about anything except sleep.

Wooyoung ignores the part where San just ratted out his order without a second lost between. It wouldn’t do him any good to ponder on it.

“Wow! You were pretty quick to declare me dead,” Wooyoung teases, a hand over his heart in mock despair.

San smacks him repeatedly on the arm in revenge and Wooyoung quickens his pace to avoid the hits before he sets out in a full-on sprint, the wind gathering his hair and pushing it to the back. San catches up with him when he slows down, a hand placed over his shoulder to regain his breaths.

“Jerk,” San says, dissolving into a bout of laughter and Wooyoung joins in because he can never _not_ laugh along when San does. He’s watched as their laughter grew uncannily similar over the years to the point that even his mom had pointed out multiple times that so many of the things they did had become scarily indistinguishable. 

San squeaks as he laughs and Wooyoung realizes that they’re painfully in sync, only to high-five each other and dissolve into laughter again.

The _stop doing the same thing I do_ phase had passed years ago. Recent years have seen them move on from personifying the multiple Spiderman meme where they point at each other at everything they do which was even remotely similar.

When they finally reach the cafe, San’s the one who orders for them both. Wooyoung leans against the navy cushion and feels it give way easily under his body. He sprawls out freely because the place isn’t bustling with customers, grateful that San had pulled them to a secluded corner. 

San laughs at him as the waitress leaves after taking their orders.

“You seem comfortable,” San comments, fiddling with his fingers as if he doesn’t even register that he is doing it. Wooyoung nods, poking his tongue out at him.

Wooyoung is _incredibly_ comfortable where he is and he doesn’t want to move, but the years he’s spent with San means that he’s so attuned to putting his best friend first before himself, so he stretches up and takes San’s fidgeting hands in his. San’s gaze falters down to their hands and he smiles sheepishly.

San drags his hand trapped under Wooyoung’s and squeezes them together. It’s a signal that he’ll be fine.

Wooyoung pulls his arm back and goes back to sprawling on the seat.

The cafe’s theme is a mix of navy blue, coffee brown and white with a pop of yellow in random places. It was clear that whoever had invested was loaded because nothing in the cafe looked like a rushed plan coming to life. There is the fresh scent of coffee, vanilla and chocolate in the air and it reminds him of cold winter dawns when he’d perch upon the counter in the kitchen and talk San’s ears off as the other made hot chocolate for the both of them.

“What did your parents say about winter break?” Wooyoung asks, sipping at his white chocolate raspberry milkshake, the sugary coolness gliding down his throat.

San’s parents tended to go out of the country on business trips, enough that most of his breaks even during high school were spent at Wooyoung’s place. It’s not that San’s parents were the kind of people who didn’t care for their son or anything, but it was clear that business was a priority to them. Wooyoung used to get angry when they were young, but he’s gotten used to not asking and just letting San do his thing now, so much that even if his parents were there, Wooyoung would take him home if he asked. 

“It doesn’t look like they’ll be home this time too. Mom said they’re in Toronto and probably will have to spend Christmas there,” San says, voice low and serious, and it’s only because Wooyoung’s known him for so long that he can pick out the slightest bit of disappointment.

San’s parents weren’t the worst parents in the world but God, did they make him want to go on a rant about getting their priorities straight.

“What are you going to do?” Wooyoung asks even if his brain’s cogs are turning already.

“The new business administration professor’s husband owns a firm. I thought I could stay on campus and try out for an internship or something.”

San takes a sip of his chocolate frappe, licking the foam from his upper lip when Wooyoung gestures at it.

“Come home with me,” Wooyoung says after a longer than usual moment of silence. San’s whips his head up quickly from where he’d been stirring the drink with his straw.

“I stayed with you the last time,” San says as if that’s a reason to stay back on campus and do an internship he’s clearly not even the slightest bit enthusiastic about. 

Christmas was San’s favorite holiday. Even Wooyoung’s parents knew that. 

What kind of a best friend would Wooyoung be if he left San alone and went home on his own?

“It wasn’t a request,” Wooyoung says, not protesting when San stretches his arms out and exchanges their drinks, his pink lips wrapping around the straw right where Wooyoung’s lips were moments ago.

 _Indirect kiss,_ a younger version of Wooyoung squeals in his head.

“Are you going to drag me to your house if I say no?” San challenges. Wooyoung doesn’t break eye contact as he takes a large sip from the chocolate frappe. 

“No,” Wooyoung says around the mouthful of frappe and swallows it down, “I’m going to irritate the life out of you till you agree.”

Throwing his head back, San lets out a hearty laugh like he is genuinely entertained. Wooyoung preens.

“All jokes aside, are you sure?” San asks.

“San, you’re acting like I’ve never taken you home for the holidays. Of course, I don’t mind. Mom’s going to scream her head off. She loves it when you come home with me,” Wooyoung says, already preparing his ears for the piercing excited yells he would get. His shrieking voice was a hereditary thing after all.

“Also, I miss having homemade hot chocolate,” Wooyoung adds, making sure that he sounds genuine.

“You just need a slave to make you hot chocolate and cuddle with you,” San says, exchanging their drinks again.

“You’ve figured out my true intentions. How can I live now that you know?” Wooyoung jokes, earning a ball of used tissue thrown at him.

It isn’t entirely his fault when the disgusted reaction he is supposed to give is delayed thanks to his brain which tells him that San had wiped his lips on the tissue which instantly meant that it wasn’t dirty anymore.

Wooyoung fakes gagging anyway, just for show. San’s giggle is delayed too, and Wooyoung feels like there’s something he is supposed to be reading into, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what it is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey rockstars,
> 
> Here's chapter two!! Holiday visits, more pining and resolution galore!! Happy reading!!

Wooyoung thinks that San might as well sit in his lap with how close he is, movements precise as he smudges the eyeshadow on his eyelid. He’d already helped San with his hair and makeup a couple of minutes ago. Wooyoung wasn’t much of a believer in God, but it was hard to not call for help to some celestial force when San’s hands were on his hips, helping him balance as he did his makeup, his warmth soaking through the leopard print button-up he had on. He’d somehow persevered through it. 

It was a ritual sort of, to go out on the Friday a week before their end semester exams and get blackout drunk, but maybe it’s the fact that there’s only one more year of uni before it ends that has Wooyoung feeling much less enthusiastic about the whole deal. San seems happy though, mostly because he liked how free they could be in a club where no one judged them or looked twice at them. 

Wooyoung wants to go and get drunk off his ass and collapse on a sidewalk or something.

San loses his balance a little as he stretches to get a hold of what Wooyoung thinks is the eyeliner. He responds immediately, straightening him up with his hands now on San’s hips. It’s practically torture, how his waist is so small under his average-sized hands. Wooyoung tries not to accelerate his descent into hell by giving into his brain’s less than appropriate thoughts.

Wooyoung sits still, barely breathing in fear of doing something he doesn’t want to. San’s hands are steady as he traces the eyeliner tip over his eyelids. He smells amazing like this, the woodsy floral scent of his cologne and his sandalwood shampoo drowning Wooyoung in it mercilessly, making him feel light-headed and floaty, and he’s not even drunk _yet_.

“You smell good,” Wooyoung blurts out, mouth betraying him and freezes. San’s eyes are intense, almost sultry with the eyeliner rimming it when he looks down at him. He doesn’t move away, brush pausing before it moves again.

“Yeah?” San asks. Wooyoung can hear how pleased he is, so he pinches his hip, making San hiss.

“I could have poked your eye, you idiot,” San scolds.

“You were fishing for compliments,” Wooyoung says, words muffled with the limited movement he can afford with the way San’s pulling down his lower lid to tightline.

“Was I? You were the one who said that I smelled good all of a sudden. Your nose malfunctions all the time, so it’s not something I get to hear often, you can’t blame me for wanting to confirm.”

Wooyoung lets out a disgruntled sound, but remains silent otherwise.

San pats his cheek and steps out of his space, his boots clicking loudly on the floor as he walks to Wooyoung’s makeshift vanity and puts the eyeshadow and eyeliner exactly where he keeps them. Wooyoung sighs in resignation. A part of him wishes San would forget things about him, just so it would make it easier for him to like him less, even if that isn’t a plausibility that looked like it would happen anytime soon, not San forgetting the little things about him and definitely not Wooyoung being able to reduce the amount of love he has for his best friend.

Wooyoung gets up after tying his shoes, picking up the leather jacket he’d placed on top of the bed before San came, shrugging it on. San leans against the table and stares at him steadily with slow blinks, arms crossed over his chest, the blue and black striped fabric of the mandarin collar shirt pulling over his biceps.

“Where’s your jacket, dumbass?” Wooyoung asks, pulling at his jacket’s cuffs, the fabric of the shirt bunched up inside the sleeves.

It’s the last week of November which means that it’s already pretty chilly outside. The club is nearby and Seonghwa is driving them, but it’s still going to be cold. There was the chance that they’d probably take a taxi back to the dorms or walk back, depending on their state of inebriation.

San shrugs and Wooyoung huffs, mildly frustrated. He goes to his closet, opening it up and picks out his black acid wash trucker jacket, throwing it to San who scowls at it. He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t move to put it on.

“Put it on or we’re not going out tonight,” Wooyoung says, leaving no room for argument and turning around to rummage the bottom drawer for his shearling jacket.

Wooyoung turns around to see San holding his arms out to show him the fit. They’re nearly the same size, so the jacket pretty much fits him like a glove. Wooyoung bites down on the urge to focus on the feeling which fills his chest at seeing San wear his clothes.

“Happy?” San asks, eyebrows raised.

“Very,” Wooyoung answers, throwing the other jacket to San as well.

“Who’s this for?” San asks, a puzzled look flashing on his face.

“You,” Wooyoung says, grabbing his phone and shoving it down with a little difficulty caused by his tight leather pants.

“Why do I have to wear two jackets when you’re only wearing one?”

Wooyoung shakes his head. San was never going to learn, was he?

“Because it’s freezing outside and you’re gonna turn into an icicle the moment we step out,” Wooyoung says pointedly.

“You don’t know that,” San says, putting up a weak defense even if he knows he won’t win this particular argument.

“Yes, I do,” Wooyoung says, stern, memories rushing to him of a million times of San refusing to take his advice and ending up shivering and clinging to him for warmth, his teeth chattering, Wooyoung’s jacket draped around his shoulders.

“Wanna bet on that?” San asks, and Wooyoung wants to smack him for being an idiot.

“No thank you. I’d rather see you alive than be ten dollars richer,” Wooyoung says, disbelief creeping into his voice at how unreasonable his best friend was being.

“Wow, dramatic much?” San says, clicking his tongue.

Wooyoung shoves him out the door and locks the room behind him.

***

Seonghwa knows the club’s owner so he cuts the line and pulls them to the employees-only door, the bouncer giving them a loose salute when he sees them. Wooyoung’s thighs ache from cramming into the middle seat with San sitting on his lap, but it’s become common enough of an occurrence that his leg muscles have gotten quicker at recovering. Yeosang and Seonghwa pull Jongho and Hongjoong to the dancefloor as soon as they get in like they usually do. 

The DJ is playing an R&B track that usually comes up on shuffle when Wooyoung lets Youtube’s algorithm do its thing during his cramming hours at midnight. It’s obviously been bass boosted, the beat making it difficult to distinguish between his heartbeat and the music. 

Wooyoung winces as San leads them to the bar after hanging his jacket, the one Wooyoung had lent him, in the room adjacent to the main floor. His legs cramp making him pause in his tracks. San gives his thighs an apologetic pat, Wooyoung holding his breath until San’s hands aren’t on his thigh anymore. It’s barely a second, but his heart drops to the floor before he pulls it up and shoves it back in his chest cavity.

San sitting on his lap during the car rides to these club visits was like one of those recurring shock treatments given to people at mental asylums which were supposed to be a kick to the real world, treatment or exposure therapy they called it, but it was more often than not just plain torture.

Mingi and Yunho get stopped by a guy Wooyoung recognizes from the ice hockey team, the guy slapping Mingi’s back lightly like he would do a friend, so he gently nudges San towards the bar. San seems to get the message and he wades through the crowd quicker than before, knowing that there was no point in waiting for their friends when they had all scattered around within five minutes of their arrival.

Wooyoung snorts as he settles on the chair, ordering martinis for the both of them. He doesn’t plan on getting blackout drunk tonight, and he could really do without a headache. San hands him the martini the bartender places on the counter, and Wooyoung subtly nods in an appreciative gesture. He sips his drink slowly and turns around in his seat to track their friends, waving at a couple of people he knows from the debate club. 

One of the girls wink at him even as she dances with someone else. Wooyoung clears his throat and pretends like he doesn’t see it, turning right back around to see San’s gaze fixed on him, expression a little pained now.

Wooyoung frowns and sets the drink down.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, watching San carefully.

San shakes his head and gives him a wide smile even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. San was the one more prone to mood swings among the gang, so Wooyoung doesn’t prod him, knowing that he will bounce right back before the night is over. San downs his drink in one go and lifts his fingers up for another one, and Wooyoung resigns himself to the fact that his best friend was going to get shit-faced which means that he’ll probably have to haul his ass home.

Wooyoung sighs heavily, nursing his one drink until San tells him that he wants a vodka which makes him want to order one for himself too. 

By the time a good forty minutes have passed, San’s hands are all over him as he leans into his space and giggles. Wooyoung keeps an arm around his waist just so that he won’t lose his balance, even if he isn’t quite at that point where he is wobbly on his feet. There’s probably a decent buzz going which makes him feel a little more liberated and think less about his actions.

Wooyoung wants nothing more than to run to his room and sob into his pillow. San tenses beside him as Wooyoung curses his fortune or lack of it and takes a sip of vodka, feeling the cool liquid go down with a kick.

It’s the girl from before who makes San tense. Wooyoung has seen her around before even though he doesn’t have a name to attach to the face. She has big eyes and a nice figure, her body con maroon dress showing off all her assets, and it would be easy to fall for someone like her, but Wooyoung’s heart and soul belong to the boy sitting beside him with the dyed blond hair and pouty lips who looks like sin and comfort both at the same time in a way Wooyoung’s never quite been able to pin down.

No one could measure up to San, not in Wooyoung’s eyes.

“Buy me a drink?” The girl asks, the coral on her lips glossy. It’s sad how Wooyoung doesn’t even feel the slightest spark coil in his gut at the desire oozing off of her.

San wiggles out of his arms with a nervous laugh. Wooyoung calls out for him, but he takes the seat on the other side of the girl and orders another drink. 

When Wooyoung cranes his neck past the girl, ignoring her for the time being to ask San to come back, he only sends him a wide grin and a thumbs up paired with a wink before he turns to his drink and downs it again. Yeosang and Jongho wave at him as they approach, their gaze flickering between the girl and him, mouth opening in a little _O_. It seems they’ve made their decision on who to sit next to and the pair flank San, ordering drinks for themselves.

The girl waves a hand in front of him. Her nails are painted a royal blue, and it looks beautiful on her, but Wooyoung can’t help but be reminded of the nail polish phase San had during freshman year, the exact shade looking way more beautiful on San’s long nails in his opinion.

Wooyoung thinks of rejecting her, but behind his eyelids is a boy he’s loved for as long as he can remember and he thinks that maybe one dance wouldn’t hurt if it helps him keep his eyes away from how good San looks tonight, his skin practically glowing even in the flash of colored lights.

“Sure,” he says, ordering the strawberry martini she tells him she likes.

Wooyoung can’t say he doesn’t see it coming when she pulls him to the dance floor, hips sashaying to the dragged out instrumental of some classy sex song. Wooyoung is in no mood to bust some of his moves, so he just lets her manhandle him as she pretty much dances around him. He gives her a couple of fake smiles which quickly fade when she places his hand on her thigh and waist, her breasts pressing into his chest.

Wooyoung feels like he wants to throw up and he freezes as she ignores his unresponsiveness and grinds her ass against his crotch. He takes his hands away instantly and steps back. Clearly, it’s not one of those nights when he can bite his teeth through the pain, guilt and regret and try his best to forget that he’s in love with San.

The girl frowns, pouting as she drags her perfectly manicured hands over his shirt. Wooyoung grabs her wrist and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling it tonight,” Wooyoung says and excuses himself, not even waiting for the girl’s response. He’s probably a dick for doing that, but at the moment all he wants to do is down another drink and look at San all night which kind of defeats the purpose of why he agreed to the dance in the first place.

The girl, much to his absolute delight, doesn’t follow him to the bar. 

Jongho and Yeosang are a little drunk on either side of San, who has his head tucked into Jongho’s neck, Yeosang’s hand patting his thigh in random intervals. They look up when he strides over to them, his hands curling around the glass in San’s hand before he gulps what is left of the vodka.

“What? She didn’t do it for you?” Yeosang asks him, sounding like he was angry at Wooyoung for some reason. 

San seems to have completely missed the tension in the air because he leaps towards him with his arms around his shoulders. “Wooyoungie,” he giggles, but his eyes are red, eye makeup smudged.

_Had San been crying?_

Yeosang pulls Jongho up and gives him a glare. “We’re leaving early. Jongho has a tutoring session tomorrow. Don’t leave him alone,” Yeosang says.

“Why would I leave him alone? What the fuck is your problem, Yeosang? What did I do?” Wooyoung asks, alcohol taking over and messing with his practiced control. San tenses in his arms, hands stroking over his back in uncoordinated movements in an attempt to calm him down.

“What _didn’t_ you do?” Yeosang counters, wobbling a little on his feet as he takes a step towards him.

Jongho gives him an apologetic look. “He’s just drunk. Don’t mind him. Get home safe,” Jongho tells him and murmurs something in Yeosang’s ear before he pulls him to the exit.

Sighing in frustration at not understanding what exactly had transpired, Wooyoung pats San awkwardly on his back. San whines against his neck, as if he was not quite ready to let him go yet.

“I wanna dance,” San says, finally pulling away from him only to grip his collar and tilt his head. 

He pokes a soft finger pad against the mole under Wooyoung’s eyes. “You have the cutest mole on the entire fucking planet, Young-ah,” San says, sounding so fucking _fond_ that Wooyoung feels his eyes prick with a familiar twinge. He feels like he doesn’t have to close his eyes to pretend that San loves him back too when he knows not to travel down that dangerous lane.

San pokes his cheek and laughs in his face, sounding ecstatic like Wooyoung was the only person who could make him feel this happy. He smells like sandalwood and flowers and vodka and it shouldn’t make Wooyoung want to kiss him silly right then and there but it does. “Have I told you that you’re cute?” San asks, eyes wide and honest, a finger still poking his cheek.

The ground might as well split open and drag him down with molten hands at this point. Wooyoung nods, because _yes_ , San was very generous with his compliments when it came to him. It was detrimental to his heart, but Wooyoung’s been living on literal crumbs for years and even if it hurt, it was easier to pretend like San was his for that one moment when he’d look him in the eye and tell him he looked good.

 _Not good enough for him_ , Wooyoung thinks, because reality will always hurt and pain is what he needs to snap himself out of the dream he sometimes wished he could live.

“You’re drunk, Sannie. Let’s just go home, yeah?” Wooyoung says, patting his cheek lightly.

San shakes his head vehemently and grimaces, probably because his head has already started spinning.

“I’m your _best friend_ and I _want_ to dance with you. Please,” San pleads, eyes filling with tears, purple lights flashing over his face making him look like he’s a God who’s decided to stay beside a mortal like him. The sight knocks all the breath out of Wooyoung’s lungs, and he repeatedly mutters _no_ under his breath and nods quickly. He doesn’t want San to start crying when he can easily displace himself from the frying pan into the fucking fire for his sake.

Swaying dangerously, San somehow finds his way through the crowd. Wooyoung follows close behind him, chest brushing San’s back with every step. It’s like everything except San fades out of focus when they move towards the centre of the floor, emptier and more spacious compared to the sides where people are grinding and getting off on each other without caring about anything.

If San was sober, perhaps Wooyoung would have broken into some choreo they had learned during the break after high school when the summer was too hot to stay outside all day, and let their bodies succumb to the pull of a beat and a momentary dream of becoming idols, but San _isn’t_ sober, and Wooyoung has no idea what to do except feel self-conscious of everything he does. 

Strangely enough, San is calm and steady, _well_ , as steady as he can be after Lord knows how many drinks. He gently pulls Wooyoung by the neck and hugs him. Wooyoung is tense, body hyper-aware of every point of contact between them, but San’s breaths are warm when they hit the slightly sweaty skin of his neck, and it makes it infinitely harder to let go.

All they do is sway to the beat, staying in each other’s embrace. It’s not like they haven’t hugged each other before, they have, to the point that Wooyoung was certain that he has never seen any of their friends be this clingy with each other. But friendships are different for everyone. This was just the way _they_ worked.

Briefly, Wooyoung dreams of San never wanting to let him go, keeping him by his side forever. No one, Wooyoung thinks, can take this away from them.

Unless San wanted to, obviously. Wooyoung would _never_ try to tie his best friend down.

San pats his back in the middle of the third song as San’s phone vibrates against his thigh. He hands it to Wooyoung, probably because he’s too dizzy to read from his screen.

Wooyoung enters his birthday and unlocks it, looking over the message from Seonghwa.

“We’ll take a cab back, okay?” Wooyoung says, waiting for San to nod before letting Seonghwa know that they’d be fine with a quick text. 

Wooyoung goes back to the bar, fishing out his wallet to get his card, paying their tab despite San’s hand slapping his arm. 

“You can pay next time,” Wooyoung says to appease San, shaking his head when he receives a fierce pout in response as he helps him into the jacket.

“Not fair,” San retorts, flailing his arms in revenge so that Wooyoung can’t get one of the sleeves over his arm.

“You paid at the cafe,” Wooyoung says, sighing heavily when San decides to show him some mercy and cooperate with wearing the jacket.

“You’re a dick for keeping tabs, Wooyoungie, no matter how cute you are,” San declares.

“Yeah yeah, so you’ve said before,” Wooyoung replies, laughing when San smacks him again.

***

It is past midnight when they walk out of the club, the moon high up in the sky, casting soft shadows over San’s face. Wooyoung’s breath catches at the picture San paints, his exhales causing the illusion of smoke in front of him. Wooyoung coughs to cover up how he was blatantly staring, San turning to face him just as he averts his gaze. 

Maybe it's the alcohol he had, or maybe it’s how he’s so irrevocably in love with San, but Wooyoung is having a really difficult time tonight keeping his thoughts and actions at bay. He digs his blunt fingernails into his palm and waits for the pain to sink in and kill the whirlpool he’s slowly succumbing to.

San sneezes, laughing right after. A girl walking past them who looks to be mildly inebriated says _bless you_. San gives her an unsteady salute. 

They’ve been waiting for a good few minutes outside the club now, but none of the cabs is vacant. The campus is within walking distance, but San gets cold easily and that along with how he was also drunk meant that he’d probably shiver all the way back if they walked. The last thing Wooyoung wants during finals week is for San to catch a cold, but it doesn’t seem like they have a choice.

“Looks like we have to walk back, Sannie,” Wooyoung says, and San blinks at him, eyes glassy and slightly out of focus. Wooyoung wishes he’d asked the bartender for some water before they left. Turning around and going in again is an inconvenience he isn’t willing to suffer through, so he mentally apologizes to San and grabs his wrist to pull him in the direction of the campus.

“I’m cold,” San says, keeping up with Wooyoung who is walking slowly in order to not make his best friend feel any more disoriented than he is already.

Wooyoung barely holds in the urge to say _I told you so_ , but San probably won’t remember it the day after, so like the best friend he is, he saves it up for similar future predicaments, an eventuality he is certain _will_ repeat itself. 

Wooyoung offers his arm a few minutes later, San taking a comically long time to process the gesture before he latches on tight against his side. It’s largely silent except for the few awed sounds San lets out every time he sees the full moon in the sky. Wooyoung should be indifferent to this side of San, but he’s just a boy who loves his best friend more than life, so he smiles softly at him and plays along.

“I want a piggyback ride,” San mumbles as the campus gate becomes clearer, looking at Wooyoung with his stupidly gorgeous eyes and his perfect face, and Wooyoung sighs in resignation.

He crouches and tilts his head in a _go ahead_ gesture. San hops on, pressing his torso completely against Wooyoung’s back and loops his arms around his neck, crossing them in front of his chest. It’s warm and comfortable, San’s chin hooked over his shoulder blade. Wooyoung hadn’t even registered that he was cold himself until San’s warmth hits him full-force with the proximity. 

It’s probably from how accustomed he was to giving and receiving piggybacks that it doesn’t feel difficult or weird at all to walk even with San wrapped around him. The guards at the gate squint at him and lets out loud guffaws when they see him.

“Kid, your friend okay?” One of them asks. Wooyoung nods.

San’s stuck to him like glue, but he still lifts one hand up and connects the thumb and index finger in a circle, the rest of his fingers straight.

The guards laugh again as he quickens his pace, arms beginning to cramp. He briefly ponders asking San to get down, but he turns his neck a little to see San’s face pressed flat against his shoulder. He looks way too comfortable to be disturbed, so Wooyoung cheers himself on and keeps walking.

It isn’t completely unexpected when San pulls him down to the bed after he’s had two glasses of water Wooyoung insists he drinks, right after they reach San’s room. San swings one leg over his thighs as if he is scared that Wooyoung is going to sneak out when in reality Wooyoung is panicking too much to even breathe, let alone trust his comparatively lesser but still drunk self to stumble back to his room.

Wooyoung really should free his thighs from his leather pants, San’s pants too, but even though he’s done it a million times before, the gesture seems too intimate tonight, something daunting which makes his heart pound faster than ever. He blinks and stretches his neck a little to look down at San who seems like he’s right where he belongs, his head on Wooyoung’s shoulder, having already surrendered himself to sleep.

Wooyoung’s heart falters and clenches in his chest. They both have makeup that really should be wiped off if they don’t want to have to deal with a breakout during finals week, but San’s warmth is addicting and the way his fingers have curled and gathered the material of his flowy shirt makes Wooyoung never want to move.

For the first time in a long time, Wooyoung lets himself be selfish and listens to his heart. Sleep bowls him over without him realizing and he dreams of blond hair, neck freckles and deep dimples which poke into the skin of flushed cheeks every time he looks at him.

***

The week that follows truly lives up to the moniker given to it by the entire student community; hell week. Wooyoung’s just grateful that he is done with all his paper submissions and presentations. He usually doesn’t get to meet up with San or the rest of the gang a lot during this time since he mostly just spends it in his room, cramming as much as possible, fully taking advantage of the final stretch before the race ends. He silently thanks all the angels looking out for him for his roommate’s relationship status which means that when exam time rolls around, he goes over to his girlfriend’s place, only coming back if he leaves something behind. Wooyoung gets the room to himself which also has the added advantage of no one judging him if he reads out lines from his notes like he’s from the Victorian era.

Wooyoung is cursing out Raymond Williams, cultural materialism and his absolute disregard for students who just wanted to graduate when San barges in all dishevelled and drags him to the cafeteria. It’s noon and he had skipped breakfast in the morning in favor of wondering why literary theory needed Lacan and mirror stage.

San shushes his protests with a finger as he piles his plate with two burgers, a bowl of rice with kimchi and a heap of fruits which is a laughable contrast in itself. The woman behind the counter gives him a motherly smile and winks as she lets San do his thing instead of interfering. San shoves the plate to him, the blunt edge digging into his stomach and proceeds to take food for himself.

Yeosang waves at them from the table next to the window. Wooyoung grabs San’s elbow and directs them towards the table.

“Where’s Yunho and Mingi?” San asks, biting into an apple slice, giving Wooyoung a side-eye, a gesture which clearly means that he is on the verge of yelling at him to get him to eat. Wooyoung shoves a grape inside his mouth and chews.

“They left. Yunho’s having a breakdown, so Mingi thought it’d be better to get him to go back to their room and sleep for a bit,” Yeosang says. He doesn’t look much better himself, the bags under his eyes almost black as he looks at Wooyoung with a mouthful of fries.

“You look like shit,” he comments.

“Jeez, thanks,” Wooyoung says, tensing before he relaxes at San’s hand playing with the fine hair at the back of his neck.

“You look like shit too,” Wooyoung continues, trying not to lean too into San’s touch no matter how much he wants to. Jongho gives him a peculiar look before he averts his gaze to his plate, looking like he is questioning life as they speak.

Yeosang shrugs and steals a grape from Jongho’s plate, something that would have him put under a chokehold by the youngest if it wasn’t for how burnt out he looked from the stress of the upcoming exams.

Wooyoung bites into the burger and gets a gentle appreciative head pat from San which immediately lifts his mood by a million points.

“Youngie, are you okay?” San asks out of the blue when they’re walking back to the dorms after bidding goodbye to Yeosang and Jongho.

Wooyoung ponders over the question. “I guess? It’s just finals getting to me,” Wooyoung says, looking to his side to see San’s furrowed eyebrows. He looks like he’s keeping it together despite all the stress in the months before.

Wooyoung pokes a finger in the middle of his eyebrow, San grabbing his finger with a ghost of a smile. He’s tired too, even if it looks like he’s faring better than all of them.

“Wanna come over and nap for a bit?” San asks, concern wrapped around his voice.

Wooyoung had barely slept a wink the night before, constantly getting up to check his notes, mind on overdrive from the stress and the insane amount of content he had to cram. He nods because San doesn’t look like he will take no for an answer, and also because he knows that being next to San for some time will help him return to cramming with renewed vigor.

When they finally reach his room, San pats his lap after he crawls into his bed, back straight against the headboard.

“You’re not sleeping?” Wooyoung asks as he sits on the bed and moves closer to San.

“I’m not sleepy. You’re the one who looks like someone rolled you over,” San says, a little amused.

Wooyoung grunts and cuddles up to him, resting his head and half his torso on San’s lap.

“Push me off the bed if I start drooling,” he says, nuzzling against the soft fabric of San’s worn sweatpants.

“I will,” San promises, carding his fingers through his hair as he scrolls through what Wooyoung knows are his lecture notes on his phone.

Wooyoung falls asleep faster than the speed of light.

***

Wooyoung’s finals end three days before San’s. 

They weren’t as bad as he had expected them to be. Hell, they were, keeping aside the possibility of coming off as big-headed, pretty great actually. He’s pretty sure he’s aced the literary theory paper. Much to his surprise and delight, his brain had cooperated much more than he had hoped it would. He was able to quote a lot of lines verbatim which pretty much affirmed good scores since the professor who evaluated the paper was particular about those kinds of detail. 

Wooyoung wipes the table with a wet cloth and bunches it up before following it up with a dry cloth. The place is kind of empty compared to the usual lunch rush they get, mostly because the students were all busy with finals.

Wooyoung had applied for days off already, so he could have just stayed at the dorms and skipped work, but staying in his room had proven to be quite the challenge. He kept wanting to go to San’s room since he had nothing to occupy himself with the exams being done. His best friend was stuck inside the grubby claws of economics, and even if San would tell him it was fine to come over, Wooyoung knew how stressed the other was with the paper. If he went, then he’d probably distract him and San would feel obligated to talk to him. Wooyoung didn’t want that to happen, so he had texted his boss and told her that he could come help. She’d responded quickly.

So here he was, wiping the tables until they were spotless, so bored out of his mind that he was counting the number of chopsticks on each table. 

Wooyoung nearly breaks his neck at the loud howls of a siren echoing inside the restaurant. 

Was that the fire force?

A pair of girls walk into the restaurant just then, sweaty and visibly panicking like they had seen something particularly terrifying on their way here.

“What’s wrong?” He hears his boss ask, curious.

“There is a fire in the third floor of the boys’ dorms. They’re saying it’s a short circuit,” one of the girls responds, looking like she’s ready to burst into tears.

Wooyoung pauses, the cogs in his brain turning so quickly that it gives him whiplash. 

_San._

He unties the apron he’s wearing and flings it behind the counter, earning him a questioning look from the owner.

“I need to go. San… San’s room is on the third floor,” Wooyoung explains, not even waiting for her response as he sprints out the door, taking off as quickly as his feet would allow him in the direction of their dorms.

His mind is a constant chant of _San, San, San,_ and Wooyoung feels like he wants to throw up. His lungs burn with the effort he demands of them, his insides trembling at the thought of something untowardly happening to San. Two ambulances rush past him, and Wooyoung runs faster, managing to somehow grab his phone and emergency dial San.

Wooyoung curses at the sound of the endless ringing and San’s sweet _sweet_ voice telling him to leave a message, that he can’t get to the phone right now. Wooyoung skids to a halt in front of the crowd gathered near and around the entrance of the dorm. 

There’s smoke from the upper floors and his heart jumps to his throat at seeing one of the firefighters carry someone Wooyoung recognizes as the guy who lives two doors down on San’s floor.

Wooyoung shoves the crowd roughly to make his way through, his phone still attached to his sweaty ear, his grip on the device precarious. There’s a ball of emotion choking him. There’s also regret at not staying with San even if going to work had seemed like the best option at the time.

Wooyoung feels the familiar sting behind his eyes and he blinks to stop himself from turning into a crying mess. He looks around wildly, catching Mingi running to him in panic.

“Did you see San, Wooyoung?” Mingi asks and Wooyoung shakes his head, agony taking him by the neck and dragging him under.

“I should have just stayed with him,” Wooyoung croaks, squinting at the entrance, already planning to push past the firefighters to go look for San himself.

Mingi pats his back, worried. “I’ll look for him on the other side. Yunho’s already looking for him. He’ll be fine,” Mingi assures and disappears into the crowd gathered around the fire engine next to the ambulances.

Wooyoung runs a sweaty hand through his hair and walks with intent towards the entrance, everything else be damned. He is stopped by a shaky hand on his shoulder and he whips around to bat it off and give whoever it is a piece of his mind only to see San’s flushed face, tears running in rivulets down his cheeks.

Relief hits him in the chest like a bullet as San brokenly whispers his name. He doesn’t even hear it in the voices blurring together around him.

Wooyoung surges forward and pulls him in by his shoulders, holding him tight, all his empathy for the people around him out of the window as San shakes in his arms. He strokes his back and mutters whatever words come to mind, not even caring if they make sense or not. He counts till hundred in his mind to stop himself from collapsing under the weight that had seized his chest just moments ago. 

That if something had happened to San, he would have gone without knowing _what_ he felt for him, of _how much_ he felt for him.

That Wooyoung would have had to spend the rest of his life without San to tickle his chin or pull him into hugs or tell him off for studying too hard.

Just… a life _without_ San if the universe had decided to be cruel today.

Wooyoung’s heard this before, that one time the new professor discussed Achilles and Patroclus in class. Wooyoung’s heart had ached in his chest for an hour for two people he wasn’t even sure existed beyond the pages of history. The professor had gone on to mix philosophy with love and had spewed some very poignant things which had wrung his heart and his soul and made him feel like she was describing something straight from his mind. 

_Imagine being so in love but never getting to tell the other person and then one day, you look back like you always do at them and they are just smoke where they stood. You reach out and all you touch is air and agony. Your heart skips a beat, but there’s nothing nice about it because you’ve lost the one person you loved, and you’ll never get to tell them how much you wanted them. You won’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone._

Maybe it’s too harsh on himself and San to think about it now, especially when San was breathing in his embrace, clutching him tight like he didn’t need anything else in life, like he trusted no one to hold him like Wooyoung would. But Wooyoung’s never been the nicest person to himself, so he thinks and thinks and _thinks_ until he’s stopped breathing altogether, San worriedly pulling away to look at him with red eyes and a panic-stricken expression, now concerned for Wooyoung instead.

San takes his wrist and places his palm flat on his chest. His heart’s pounding and chest heaving with how quick his breaths are, and Wooyoung tries to smile, faltering when San wipes away the wetness he hadn’t even noticed gathering from his cheek.

“I’m okay,” San tells him, and it’s unfair how Wooyoung’s been strong all his life, but the one time San wants him to be strong for him, he’s the one pulling them together again.

 _I’m okay_ , San tells him, but all Wooyoung hears is _there will come a day when I won’t be_ and it’s a reality check that brands itself into his heart.

Wooyoung already knows what he needs to do, no matter the repercussions.

Mingi and Yunho collide with them before they put their arms around the two of them as they thank the Gods, but San looks at him like he sees right through him, and Wooyoung wishes he’d see the one thing Wooyoung’s been hiding from him since they were fifteen, back when they were motivated by procrastination and smoothies alone and feelings were an inconvenience and at the bottom of the priority list.

***

Three days later finds them on the train to Busan, thighs touching and Wooyoung’s head on the crook of San’s neck, the other sliding down a little to make the position comfortable for the both of them. Wooyoung is so tired, he feels like his brain will melt right out of his ears from how he’s been having issues falling asleep the past couple of days, slipping into the arms of darkness only to wake up with uncanny and terrifying nightmares at the back of his mind.

Wooyoung clutches San’s hand tightly in his. San gives him a puzzled look, but he doesn’t move to pull away. 

“Is your dad coming to pick us up?” San asks, playing with the strap of Wooyoung’s watch.

“Yeah. I think Wonshik’s coming too,” Wooyoung says, watching the mention of his little brother light San’s face. San makes a cute noise after, pinching Wooyoung’s thigh when he rolls his eyes in jealousy.

“Don’t be like that,” San says, borderline petulant.

“Like what?” Wooyoung asks, even if he knows exactly what he means.

“You’re jealous,” San points out, pinching his thigh again and Wooyoung hisses in pain, grateful that they’d picked a corner seat.

“Am I? Of what?” Wooyoung asks, playing dumb.

“You totally are. You’re jealous of your little brother,” San says like it’s a fact which it is, not that Wooyoung’s going to agree that quickly.

“Why would I be jealous of him?” Wooyoung asks, biting his bottom lip to keep himself from giving up the fight.

“Because you’re scared he’s going to steal me from you,” San sing-songs in a high voice.

 _A lot of people already have_ , Wooyoung thinks bitterly, but instead of that he huffs incredulously.

“I’m your _best friend_. We’ve known each other longer. I’m not scared of _anyone_ ,” Wooyoung says, confident. 

San’s gaze falls to his mouth before he looks at him.

“That certain huh?” San asks like he’s amused.

Wooyoung shrugs and adjusts his arm so that he can rest comfortably against San as he plays with his watch.

San takes a moment to relax under him, but he does eventually, resuming to pull on Wooyoung’s watch and twist the end that sticks out.

***

Wooyoung fully sees it coming when Wonshik sprints past him, leaping into San’s arms. His dad shakes his head and smiles, opening his arms to give him a tight hug before he pats his back and pulls away.

“I see that nothing has changed,” his dad says, gesturing towards San and himself with his chin. Wooyoung frowns.

“What do you mean?” Wooyoung asks, feeling totally out of the loop, but his dad merely looks at him for a moment before he hugs San who still has Wonshik attached to his leg.

“You brat,” Wooyoung calls, lifting his ten-year-old brother in the air as he laughs in delight.

“Did you miss me?” He asks, ruffling his hair.

“Nope,” Wonshik says, popping the p. “I missed Sannie hyung!”

Wooyoung pouts and tickles him, his little brother howling for help from San. A part of his heart is delighted to see how perfectly San fits into this picture, how he’s always fit so seamlessly in Wooyoung’s life like he belonged right here.

Wooyoung lets his brother go once he’s deemed the tickle punishment fit, filing into the backseat along with San. His dad pulls out of the parking lot carefully, and then they’re off to home.

There are endless fields on either side of the road, but there’s not much greenery because of winter. There is the occasional tree and bush here and there, but other than that, the fields are mostly barren. He can still see farmers digging into the soil, but he doesn’t know enough about farming to know exactly what they’re doing.

It doesn’t snow in Busan since the coast is so near, so Wooyoung is not surprised to see the clear roads. He does remember a couple of times when it snowed very lightly though, before he and San moved to Seoul. 

The car moves through the narrower parts of the town, his dad taking a turn which takes them straight home. It’s a fork, one road taking them to San’s home, the other leading to his own. His dad pulls into the driveway a couple of minutes later, Wonshik unbuckling his seatbelt and jumping out screaming _they’re here_ as he runs inside.

San chortles as he gets out. Wooyoung can see the Christmas tree already from the glass window, but it’s undecorated like it usually is, even if Wooyoung had asked his mother to not wait for them and to just let Wonshik do it himself. She had refused to listen though, wanting to keep up the tradition of San and him decorating it when they come home for the break.

“Your mom has the tree up already,” San says, smiling softly.

“I told her it was fine. God, she never listens,” Wooyoung huffs, pulling their bags out of the trunk, letting San grab one of them. San reaches for his bag too, and Wooyoung pinches his bicep, chuckling when San grunts in pain.

Wooyoung closes the trunk to catch his dad staring fondly at the rearview mirror. 

“Hey old man, are you gonna come out or what?” He asks, still smiling at San who slaps his arm in revenge.

Wooyoung’s dad ruffles his hair as he walks past, him and San following close behind. They toe off their shoes at the door. There’s the smell of steamed dumplings and sweet red bean paste in the air, and Wooyoung feels immediately at home.

“Mom,” he calls, already padding over to the kitchen, San following him in. His mom is standing behind the stove, and she lowers the flame before she turns around and gathers both of them in her arms, patting their heads gently.

“My handsome sons,” she says, still squeezing the life out of them with all the strength her tiny body can muster up.

“Mom, we need to breathe,” he wheezes out and she laughs as she lets go.

“Look at how thin you’ve both become. I’m going to stuff you with food,” she declares proudly, and Wooyoung throws San a look asking him to prepare for disaster even if they both saw this coming from miles away. 

Wooyoung already feels like crying at how he’ll probably have to wake up at unholy hours when they finally return to uni to go running so that he can drop the weight he will inevitably put on whilst he’s here. At least, he won’t be alone.

Listen, he knows it won’t be _that_ bad, but it’s still a _genuine_ fear of his.

Wooyoung climbs the stairs and takes the right turn which leads him to his room. It’s pretty much the same, except for how his mom has obviously cleaned up, because the room is spotless, not a speck of dust to be seen anywhere. The posters of Rain and BTS above his table have started to fade a little, but they’re otherwise undamaged.

San halts at the doorway, staring at him as he plops down on the bed.

“What? You need an invitation to come in or something?” Wooyoung asks, snorting loudly, only to frown at San’s lack of response, his gaze still fixed on Wooyoung.

“Sannie?” He calls again, raising his voice a little.

San snaps himself out of his reverie, blinking before his face splits in a grin.

“Is something wrong?” Wooyoung asks, trying to pretend like the image of San amidst the souvenirs from a past which spelled out the exact year he’d fallen for San doesn’t hurt him in the slightest.

“Just got a little nostalgic,” San admits, coming to his side and sitting next to him, blond hair still tousled and messy from the round of hair ruffles he’s received. Wooyoung pats his hair down, silently wondering why nostalgia would make San so silent.

Usually, this is the part where they start teasing each other, tackling each other to the ground and play fighting for the sake of old times, where Wooyoung acts like San’s waist under his palms doesn’t cause him to feel hot all over, and he laughs despite the pain.

Wooyoung can’t handle reading into San’s stare on his face, so he takes the other’s finger in his hand and bites down on it, voluntarily triggering a fight to distract himself and San. He doesn’t miss the dull look in San’s eyes when he finally pulls away from him as his mom calls them down for dinner.

Wooyoung feels San’s stare on him throughout dinner and when he puts a piece of samgyeopsal in San’s bowl, the room falls noticeably silent. Wooyoung chuckles nervously at the three pairs of eyes directed at him, stuffing his face with rice to quell the unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

***

San wakes him up around dawn. Wooyoung groans, absently pulling him close to his side before he tenses in realization. He relaxes when San giggles softly as he turns around in his arms and bites his ear. Wooyoung howls in pain, San placing a hand over his mouth to stop him from waking the whole house up.

“What the fuck was that for?” Wooyoung hisses, sitting up as San does the same, rubbing at his throbbing ear.

“You told me you missed drinking hot chocolate,” San tells him, putting his arms under him and dragging him to the edge of the bed.

Wooyoung feels divided between sleep and hot chocolate, especially because his sleep schedule has been fucked since the fire incident. He knows that he slept better tonight only because San was right there with him, but he’s also scared of the way San’s looking at him like he’s about to give him an ultimatum; get up and drink hot chocolate or _perish_.

“If you’re not out of the bed in the next ten seconds, I will never ever make hot chocolate for you in your life,” San says, eyes squinted at him in warning.

Wooyoung is out of the bed before he even starts counting.

***

Wooyoung remembers the trend of hot chocolate starting during the winter break of the freshman year in high school. It was one of those things you did spontaneously one day and realized that you liked it enough to keep with it. San had stayed over for Christmas because his parents were in fucking Moscow or some country Wooyoung can’t remember for the life of him, mostly because years blur together when he’s with San. Pent up anger for his best friend’s parents from years aside, he remembers waking up to San shivering next to him because they’d left the window open like the complete fools they were.

Fast forward a few minutes later, Wooyoung had bundled San up in all the blankets he could find in his room. They’d waddled quietly down the steps and Wooyoung had proceeded to let the description at the back of the hot chocolate mix guide him.

Safe to say, it hadn’t turned out well and as if by some divine stroke of luck, Wooyoung had opened the drawers underneath the counter to find that there was a stock of the mix from his mom’s panic buying weeks before Christmas actually began.

San had taken over and made the _meanest_ hot chocolate possible. Wooyoung had merely hovered nearby, not enough to bump into his best friend with every move he made, but enough to have him feel his warmth around him.

They’d done the same thing the night after, and the night after that and by the time the break was over, it had become something that both of them wanted to do in the years to come. They did, however, cut down the nightly trysts with their chocolate destiny soon after because Wooyoung was still on the track team, and he didn’t want to gain ten pounds in three days.

San had, however, grown out of the mix phase very quickly. Wooyoung was a disaster in kitchens so he definitely did not complain at his best friend stocking up on some essential life skills.

Maybe it’s the cold or maybe it’s how San’s blond hair sticking up in different directions creates a halo atop his head in the dull glow of the kitchen light that makes Wooyoung stare unabashedly. He’s perched on the counter, watching San whisk the milk and sugar together slowly.

“How sweet do you want it to be this time?” San asks, running a hand through his hair as if he’s suddenly conscious of how it looks when the damage has already been done, and there’s no one in the room except Wooyoung there to see.

“As sweet as you are,” Wooyoung says because he’s still sleepy and because he knows he can get away with it.

Apparently not.

San’s grip on the whisk tightens for a moment before he looks at him, a cluster of indiscernible emotions flashing through his face making it hard for Wooyoung to figure out if he’s taken the joke in good nature or not.

“Am I though? Am I really sweet?” San asks and his tone doesn’t have an ounce of humor to it.

Wooyoung feels his eyebrows knit together.

“Sannie?” He calls, feeling like he’s missing a huge piece in a puzzle.

San shakes his head.

“Never mind. It’s just 4 AM getting to me,” he says, and he doesn’t look like he wants to talk about it, so Wooyoung hesitantly lets it go.

Later, San pours them both hot chocolate in their cups and lifts himself up on his hand to sit next to him on the counter. Wooyoung catches him looking at him with a small, appreciative smile. Suddenly, the butterflies he’d avoided all day bloom to life in his stomach and he feels a blush come on, so he taps San’s chin with a finger and takes a sip from the heaven in a cup and ignores everything else.

***

It’s a couple of days later, after he and San have visited some of their high school friends who are also home for break from their universities that they finally get the time to sit down and decorate the Christmas tree.

“Where’s the red star we got last year at the fair?” San asks him. Wooyoung sifts through the box of decorations next to him, but he doesn’t find it.

“It’s in the attic, San,” Wooyoung’s mom replies with a smile, walking to them and sitting on the couch.

San hums. “I’ll go get it,” he says, rising to his feet and climbing the stairs. Wooyoung briefly glances at Wonshik playing ball outside with his dad and smiles to himself, hands twisting the thin ribbon to hang a small angel figurine on the branch at the bottom.

Wooyoung can feel his mom’s stare on him and he ignores it because it feels like she is preparing for a confrontation. 

Wooyoung has _never_ been good at confrontations.

“So, anyone special you want to tell me about?” 

Wooyoung wants the ground to open up so that he can take gravity’s hand and free-fall into his own demise. Perhaps he’ll scream to really make it seem like he has committed his everything to it.

“No, no one, mom,” he says finally, inwardly sighing and resolutely keeping his eyes from meeting hers in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

There’s a loud bang from upstairs and Wooyoung whips his head up. “San?” He shouts.

“I’m fine. I just dropped a box,” San shouts back.

“Anyone special in San’s life?” Wooyoung’s mom asks, switching lanes like she wasn't interrupted at all.

This is a first. Wooyoung falters, the ornament in his hand dropping and rolling to his mom’s feet. She bends down and picks it up, rolling it in her hands.

“No, I don’t think so,” Wooyoung says, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth as he picks a miniature star to tie around the tip of a branch.

“I’ve waited for years for you to knock on my door and tell me that you love him, Wooyoung-ah, but I guess your dad was right when he said you took after me in being stubborn,” his mom says after a few moments spent staring at him inquisitively. Her gaze is impossibly tender now. Wooyoung snaps his head up to look at the stairs, relieved to find it empty.

“I...” he stammers, blood rushing loudly in his ears, sweat beginning to gather at his temples even if it’s the coldest winter Busan has had in three years.

“I thought that maybe college would knock some sense into you and give you the courage to do what you should have done years ago and when you brought him home during the last break, I thought that maybe finally something had happened, but nothing had.”

His mom looks sad, like she’s disappointed in herself for not talking to him sooner.

“Mom, I… He doesn’t like me like that,” Wooyoung says, and it’s the first time he’s admitted it out loud even if his words are still vague. “I’ll get over it eventually.”

“How will you know if you don’t try?” His mom asks, chin upturned in a challenge.

“He’s my best friend, mom. I think I would have known if he liked me back.”

His mom laughs sadly.

“What if he’s as good at pretending as you are?”

Wooyoung doesn’t have a clear answer to that, but it’s a question which gives him hope that he shouldn’t feel, so he looks at the stairway again and sighs.

“Tell him before this break ends. A last-ditch effort. If he doesn’t like you back, that’s fine. What’s the worst that could happen? He’s San, he’s the boy who shoved another boy to the ground when you were seven, he’s the boy who was there with you every step of the way, the one who stayed over and slept with you even if he knew he would catch a cold, Wooyoung-ah. He’s your _first love,_ sweetheart. Don’t let your fears stop you from going for what you want. If not in yourself, have some faith in him.”

His mom gets up, gently patting his head once, smiling kindly at him before she walks to the kitchen. 

_His first love_.

_His San._

There’s a victorious whoop coming from the attic and Wooyoung’s heartbeat slows down only to pound a hundred times faster.

Maybe it really was time for a confession.

***

The moment passes all too quickly and Wooyoung wishes he’d held onto it a little more.

Briefly, he wonders if he’d ever tell San of years of pining, of wanting himself to give up but never being able to, of not even attempting to distance himself as much as he should have in favor of wanting to spend more time with San because San was his best friend first and foremost.

Wooyoung naps on the living room couch in the evening, falling asleep to the steady chatter of San and his mom in the kitchen.

He dreams of sunny afternoons when the air is hot enough to make his collar soak through and rainy evenings where he can cuddle up to his fox plushie and sip ginger tea. He dreams of trekking down the valley, his hand firmly held in his best friend’s and pedalling down the alley at the speed of light, listening to the man on the sidewalk yell profanities at him. 

Wooyoung dreams of sun-kissed hands and plush, pink lips and a friendship that he has bound to his soul since he was seven. He dreams of holding his best friend’s hands and telling him his soul knows where it belongs.

He dreams of lean, long eyes peering inside him with the intensity of the afternoon sun, of looking up at the boy who was named after the mountains, the one who stood his ground with the strength of one. He dreams of telling him that he’s _always_ known that they were meant to be, of tearing his chest open and showing him how every other beat is a whisper of his name.

Wooyoung wakes up cold and shivering, the living room windows open, the movie his dad put on in the afternoon still playing on the TV and the voice in his mind tells him that he’ll never be able to witness his dreams turn to reality. 

San sets a steaming cup of what smells like ginger tea on the coffee table and lifts his feet up to plop down on the couch, rubbing at his ankle like he doesn’t care that it’s his _feet_.

Wooyoung gulps and screws his eyes shut.

When he opens them a few minutes later, San’s smiling at the window, fingers still pressing down on the soles of his feet, looking so content that Wooyoung can do nothing but stare.

***

Christmas is a loud affair, but it’s just mostly him, San and Wonshik yelling at each other over a bunch of board games San found in the attic. Wooyoung’s pretty certain that they’re making up the rules as they go. Playing with a ten-year-old also means that every other move is a tantrum.

San excuses himself and gets up after an hour or so, mumbling about helping his mom. Wooyoung tries to keep Wonshik company, but his little brother is crankier than usual today, mostly because his mom had denied his request to cut the cake in the morning. His dad must sense that he has started to zone out because he looks up from where he’s been reading a book on maintaining gardens and calls Wonshik to him.

Sending his dad a grateful smile, Wooyoung leans back on his hands and stares out the window, the flowy pale lavender curtain caressing his face when a particularly strong gust of chilly wind blows. He is still contemplating his mom’s words, dying a little with the kind of anxiety it makes him feel. 

Wooyoung’s hidden his feelings away for so long that he had never considered the possibility of ever confessing to San. He'd just assumed that he'd move on at some point in time even though he had reconciled with the certitude that he might not ever. Ever since he realized that it wasn’t just a routine crush that would go away as quickly as it came, he’s been cautious and the fact that his parents saw right through him makes him wonder how many people who knew them saw what he only thought about and kept tucked in the innermost folds of the chambers of his heart.

Rising to his feet, Wooyoung walks to the kitchen, figuring that he could help San and his mom if he was going to waste his time on a confession that he will have to rip out of his throat at best. Ignoring his feelings has become a habit that even the thought of looking at San with all the love he has for him makes his insides shrivel up in fear.

Wooyoung knows that it’s the fear of rejection merged with a healthy dose of guilt which has stopped him all these years. 

What if San felt betrayed at how he’s harbored feelings for him for so long and decided to leave forever?

It’s a little irrational, he knows, but it’s hard, Wooyoung thinks, when all of rationality has been discarded on the asphalt of the alley they rode their bikes in when they were too young for Wooyoung to even understand why San’s dimpled smile made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The fire and smoke from a week and a half ago is still fresh in his memory and Wooyoung wants to utter the words, wants to show San how he feels, but it’s harder than the time he’d admitted it to himself.

Ring-adorned hands dig into his chest and come away red, painted with the blood in his veins and it’s another evening that reminds him that San will always be the light at the end of the tunnel he keeps chasing.

Wooyoung runs anyway because even if he can’t _touch_ , not the way he wants to, he can _see_ , and that’s the only thing that he’s ever allowed himself to do, to look at San, even if from a distance, to smile at his happiness and sob at his disappointments, to rage like the ocean at his anger and anchor him down when life shifts under them like quicksand and tries to make them drown.

Wooyoung doesn’t dream of being a mirror, but that’s all he’s ever been.

Thoughts of dyed blond hair and nails bitten raw cripple him on sight.

***

San takes a piece of cake as his mom cuts it into even rectangular slices and Wooyoung thinks that _hey, this is the year when he’ll finally eat it first_ instead of turning around and shoving it into Wooyoung’s mouth.

Wooyoung’s _wrong._

San’s half-moon eyes hide under the skin around them as he opens his mouth in a familiar gesture asking him to open his own, a gentle hand cradling his chin even though he’s twenty-one years old and doesn’t need his best friend to feed him Christmas cake like he’s a child. Wooyoung opens up anyway, nearly choking on the cake as San shoves a sizable half of it into his mouth, wide, curious eyes peering into his.

“Is it good?” He asks, eating the other half and chewing quickly.

San’s gaze drops to his lips and Wooyoung’s about to wipe at them when San takes the liberty of doing it himself, thumb swiping at the corner of his lips and licking the butterscotch cream off his finger.

At that moment, Wooyoung is an iceberg which causes ships to sink, mast broken, hull and propeller shattered, and San is the warm fire in the hearth which warms the people he loves. Wooyoung thaws slowly and steadily under it and when San does the same thing a second time, his intense eyes tracing his face, Wooyoung knows that it is impossible to pretend any longer.

It is _time_.

***

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières waits on the shelf of his childhood room. Wooyoung flips it open after he’s bundled himself up in a sweater and two jackets. San is already out the door, excited at Wooyoung’s sudden declaration that they should go to the beach.

Wooyoung had received the book in junior year after working his ass off on a creative writing paper. The girl who had been his partner had confessed to never wanting much to do with literature, and Wooyoung was much too excited at the prospect of getting to take all the creative liberties he wanted for their paper on the use of chorus in Greek tragedies that he’d practically _pounced_ at the opportunity.

However, the girl must have felt bad because a week after they received an A on the paper, she had come to the cafeteria with the book. Wooyoung hadn’t read it till the weekend after, knowing very well two pages in that it’ll be one of those books he’d need to read without pausing in between.

Certain enough, he was right.

Wooyoung flips the pages to where the purple chrysanthemum bookmark that San made for him using nail polish and chart paper rests. There, in the middle lies the lines which Wooyoung has kept himself from reading for a long time.

_When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!_

It still hits as hard as the first time he’d read it, and Wooyoung shuts the book, pulling at his jacket when San yells for him to come down from the living room.

***

Wooyoung has always thought that the soul of Busan rested in the waves, constantly moving, ebbing and flowing like the sea was breathing, kissing the shore in rhythmic intervals with varied intensities. Growing up, both him and San had spent a sizable amount of their time here, playing with frisbees and balls in the evenings, biking home with sand in places where there shouldn’t be, blaming each other at their parents’ questions of who tracked sand inside their homes when they knew very well that it was a combined effort rather than a solo one.

The sea is as pretty as Wooyoung remembers it to be, heaving and rocking up and down in a natural symphony, splashing against the shore and pulling back. San walks ahead of him, his feet leaving imprints on the wet sand that Wooyoung wants to step on but doesn’t because of some twisted sense of loyalty. The sea breeze is cold as it hits his face, and Wooyoung knows that he can’t drag this out any longer than he already has.

San twists around and walks backwards into the sea, nearly stumbling a little. He’s smiling like Wooyoung’s the best thing he’s ever seen, eyes fond and sincere.

Wooyoung _wants_ to kiss him.

It's definitely not the first time he has thought about it, but he’s always been incredibly skilled at stopping himself from wanting San. Maybe it’s the fact that he knows what the next words out of his mouth would be that he’s finally throwing caution to the wind in his head.

When he finally confesses, Wooyoung thinks, San will gently let him down or maybe he’ll yell before he pulls him into a hug and gently whisper a rejection in pretty words that Wooyoung will remember for a lifetime. Before they walk home, Wooyoung will gather the pieces of his heart and throw it in the ocean and remember his heart for what it used to be, will think about how he never got to kiss his first love and maybe, just _maybe_ , he’ll finally move on though it doesn’t seem like it.

Wooyoung doesn’t have a plan for the possibility of San running away and refusing to see him till the day they die, feeling betrayed and wronged. He doesn’t know if he’ll look at Wooyoung and see a liar alone and not a best friend, never again.

Wooyoung’s only prepared himself for one outcome because he’s a weak, _weak_ boy who can’t picture a life without his best friend.

San claps to get his attention. Wooyoung bends down to cuff his jeans at the ankles and pulls it up a little before he joins San on the line where the sand is constantly wet from the water.

Wooyoung feels his heart rise so far up it spills out of his throat. He entwines their hands together, squeezing them for some strength.

“I love you.”

San giggles and coos at him, turning to pinch his cheek.

“I love you too, Wooyoungie.”

 _Not like I want you to_ , Wooyoung thinks.

Wooyoung’s heart churns out a beat too fast before his mind can beg him to stop. 

“San,” he calls, pleading for his voice to not give up on him, “I _love_ you,” he says and continues, “In a more-than-friends way.”

There’s a petrifying lapse of silence which engulfs them. The smile on San’s face falls like the last leaf in autumn. 

_Look at him, save this in your head so that you can remember it for as long as you live and stop you from making a fool of yourself again_ , Wooyoung’s mind provides.

“I don’t.. I don’t understand,” San says, his hands tightening on Wooyoung’s as he turns completely to face him. San’s expression is unreadable. “When?” San asks.

Wooyoung can feel the words prick frost in his eyes.

“ _Forever_ ,” Wooyoung breathes, laughing condescendingly, but it’s not the answer San wants to hear so he continues, “I think I stopped myself from really admitting it for a long time. I didn’t even know I wasn't straight until I realized that what I felt for you wasn’t something that anyone will feel for their best friend. I just… I’ve wanted you since I was sixteen, San. _No_ ,” he corrects, “I _realized_ I was in love when we were sixteen. I tried to stop myself, _so many times_ ,” he feels a tear roll down his cheek as he says it, lungs refusing to cooperate but Wooyoung holds fast, “I tried so hard, Sannie, but it’s impossible not to fall in love with you and if I could do this over again, I’d repeat everything again because it would be unfair of me to live in a world where I don’t love you the way I do now.”

San stares at him. After a painfully long moment, he lowers his wide-eyed gaze with several blinks. Wooyoung is smart enough to know what the silence means and he has so much more to say, so he tries to get it all out before San stops him.

“I thought sleeping around would help. I thought that seeing you with other people would help. But no matter what, I… I couldn’t move on. I don’t expect you to like me back, but I’ve been dying every day for the past I don’t know how many years and I just… I couldn’t _not_ tell you.”

 _There_ , his heart tells him. Wooyoung wants to wipe away the tears blurring his vision and steadily streaming down his face, but San’s hands are still in his, and Wooyoung isn’t certain if he’d get to hold them again if he lets go now.

“You _love_ me?” San asks in a timid voice like he’s on the verge of tears himself.

Wooyoung nods, closing his eyes because he’s bared his soul to San, and he doesn’t think he can handle it when San rejects him while looking him in the eye.

His heart falls to the ocean bed when San rips his hands out of his. Wooyoung opens his eyes, ready to kneel in front of San to give him another chance, that he'll be a better friend, that he won't stare at his mouth or look at him like he wants him for an eternity.

Wooyoung is not at all prepared for San to lean in, his hands cupping his jaw, fingers caressing over the soft skin. Wooyoung opens his eyes just as San’s soft lips meet his own.

San is _kissing_ him.

San is kissing _him_.

Wooyoung lets his eyes flutter shut, his arms curling around San’s thin waist as he kisses back, wondering if this is a dream. 

“I love you too, you idiot,” San says as he pulls away, smiling and crying, and Wooyoung shakes his head, knees weak.

“You’re just… you’re just saying that to console me,” Wooyoung says in disbelief, even if his tingling lips should be evidence enough.

“Would I have kissed you if I didn’t love you as much as you love me? Do you think I would ever do that to you?” 

Wooyoung shakes his head, feeling the coil in his chest finally unwind as San surges forward again, the kiss no longer chaste. His tongue slides into his, an open invitation. San tastes like milk chocolate and butterscotch cake and something so distinctly him that Wooyoung wants to sink into him and drown in his taste even if he hasn’t fully processed what is happening yet.

Wooyoung thinks that it’s not butterflies in his stomach anymore, instead, it feels like there are dragons inside him because even in the cold ocean breeze, he feels warm like San has breathed all his warmth into him. San’s teeth pull on his lower lip and he presses them closer till there’s no space left to breathe. Wooyoung stumbles back as his entire body starts to give up as realization finally dawns.

“ _You love me_ ,” he whispers against San’s lips, feeling euphoric and San nods, a tear trailing down his cheek, Wooyoung tracing its path. 

“I do,” San says like he’s trying to assure him. “I thought you didn’t. I thought I’d have to spend the rest of my life by your side without ever getting to want you the way I do. I love you,” San continues, sounding pained.

Wooyoung cups his cheeks this time, leaning in to press a feather-light kiss on San’s lips, letting their tongue tangle for a moment before he pulls away to kiss his forehead, eyelids and cheeks.

San giggles, his breath still smelling sweet, lips slick with saliva and tears.

“How could I not, San? How could I possibly have looked at you and not seen an eternity?”

Wooyoung’s voice finally breaks and he willingly goes into the hug San offers to him. This one is nothing like the ones he’s received before because, for the first time, he lets himself take everything San gives him. Wooyoung tucks his face into his neck as San does the same. He takes a deep whiff of sandalwood and flowers and enjoys the way San’s grip around him tightens. 

“We are idiots, aren’t we?” Wooyoung asks, pressing the words against the freckles on San’s throat.

San nods against his shoulder, pulling away to kiss him senseless again, tears overflowing again at finally getting to do what they’ve been keeping hidden for so long. Wooyoung feels San shudder when he pries away from their frenzied kiss, suckling along the other’s jaw.

San lets out a soft moan and Wooyoung freezes, pulling away with shock written on his face.

“What?” San asks, blushing.

Wooyoung’s mouth dries, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He chokes when he experimentally kisses San’s jaw once more, the other letting out a wispy moan.

“Are you…” Wooyoung pauses, “Are you always this sensitive?”

San’s gaze shifts, intense as he smirks even if his ears are red from embarrassment.

“Would you like to find out?” San asks, and Wooyoung slaps his arm.

God, he really was going to be the death of him, wasn’t he?

***

By the time they make it back home, it’s past midnight, but his mom is still in the kitchen, cleaning up. She takes one look at their entwined hands and flushed faces and screams for his dad to come out.

“ _Fucking finally_ ,” his dad mutters, letting out a long-suffering sigh.

“Language,” his mom says even if Wonshik is fast asleep in bed.

His dad winks at San and pats his shoulder before pulling them into a tight hug.

“We’ve waited for a long time for this to happen. You have all our blessings,” his dad mumbles, sounding the happiest Wooyoung’s ever heard him sound.

Wooyoung’s mom sobs as she gathers them in her arms, rambling about how she always knew that they would find their way back to each other, that she was only praying for them to finally open their eyes and see what they had right in front of them.

Wooyoung’s too overwhelmed with all the emotions hitting his chest to respond, so he shakily exhales and nods.

When they lie next to each other that night, it’s to whispered confessions of everything they’ve kept from the other for fear of the other person finding out.

Wooyoung is positive that they’re probably the dumbest people on the planet. He thumbs through the pages of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and reads the lines out loud when his own words begin to fail him as he yields to the tears from years of a love kept clandestine.

San presses him to the bed and straddles him, ducking down, and Wooyoung’s heart soars in his chest as he once again whispers the words he’s wanted to hear for what seemed like forever. Wooyoung chokes on his breath as he says it back.

San tightly interlocks their hands and bends down again to press a chaste kiss on the corner of his lips before he decides otherwise and locks their lips together.

Wooyoung thinks that his heartbeat must be audible to his neighbors by how strong and loud it feels as it pounds against his chest. He lets his mind zone back in on San, on his little gasps which makes his pants feel a little tighter and traces his mouth like he wants to commit it to memory, like he wants to learn exactly how every flick of his tongue has San moaning louder, pressing closer for more.

Wooyoung kisses San like he’s a home with many doors that he hasn’t explored yet, cherishing the squeaks and little gasps every move pulls out of him. He doesn’t dream that night, like his mind has finally decided that he doesn’t need dreams anymore, not when his greatest dream was cuddled close to him, not oblivious anymore.

***

**the cool crew**

tallboi yun

woo’s not picking up

fixon mingles

san is not picking up either

sangsang

probably died in a ditch. /together/

prettiestmars

wtf yeo! /glares/

weewooboy

i told san i love him

powerbaby

he’s here! fucking finally dude. i was getting sick of the pining

luckyjoong

hold tf up, did he say yes?

mountsan

i did

prettiestmars

is it the end of the world?

tallboi yun

(tackle hugs you) we love u, lovesick puppies

weewooboy

did /everyone/ know? you couldn’t have told me?

i was in /pain/, you assholes

fixon mingles

i owe yeo ten dollars now, eat shit, woosan!

mountsan

you bet on us? i second what woo said btw, assholes

sangsang

mingi said woo will tell u on the day of graduation.

i said it will happen during winter break, 

but we bet on it freshman year

luckyjoong

took u both long enough

powerbaby

we were suffering

weewooboy

yeah? imagine our condition

mountsan

i love you, woo

weewooboy

i love you, sannie

fixon mingles

ewww

luckyjoong

(gags)

prettiestmars

they’re cute

tallboi yun

i know right?

powerbaby

ewwwww

sangsang

im about to throw up

weewooboy

rights for yunho and seonghwa 

hyung only

mountsan

yea, the rest of you are cancelled

fixon mingles

hold on, did you bang yet??

sangsang

yeah, tell us all the juicy details

luckyjoong

i thought yeosang was the token prude in our gang

powerbaby

hes not. hes /very/ flexible

prettiestmars

my eyes

mountsan

not yet, but soon

(eyes emoji)

weewooboy

no comment

***

Wooyoung sighs for the millionth time as San slams his book closed again. 

“Sannie, it’s the best part,” he whines, flicking the book open, glad that he had the foresight to remember the page thanks to San’s constant interruptions every other second.

Not much has changed between him and San, except for how they kiss a lot now. 

They’ve never had to keep an eye on their door when they were home, but Wooyoung’s constantly vigilant now, just as a precautionary measure in case Wonshik decides that it’s time to pay his brother and his boyfriend an untimely visit. San rolls his eyes and gets up every time they make out to close the door, pouting and complaining about how Wooyoung wasn’t paying attention to him.

Wooyoung as dumb and oblivious as he was about San’s feelings, knows what comes next. It’s not that he is scared of sex or anything, but it’s incredibly daunting when it’s San under him and not just some random one-night stand whom he can afford to forget the next day.

He knows that San wants to have sex, his frustrated whines when Wooyoung pulls away and kisses his forehead before they sleep are enough clues for him to arrive at that conclusion, but he doesn’t know how to tell San that he is scared of hurting him, of not being enough.

What if all his one-night stands had lied about him being in bed and he’s actually terrible at sex?

San straddles him and takes the book out of his hands, putting it on the bedside table. He takes his glasses off too, Wooyoung protesting only to have his hands batted away. San folds them neatly and keeps them over the book. 

“Hey,” San says, like he wasn’t sitting on his thighs with the sweetest smile tinged with a hint of something else Wooyoung can’t figure out. 

“Hey,” Wooyoung whispers back.

“So, let’s just get to it, yeah?” San says, but it seems like it’s directed more at himself than Wooyoung. San sighs heavily. “Do you not want me like _that_?”

San’s face is a beautiful facade of feigned apathy, but Wooyoung can see how the small smile he has on his face is strained with something he knows is self-doubt and sadness.

Wooyoung doesn’t know how he manages to screw up everything in his life so splendidly. He grabs San’s hips and flips them over, tossing San against the mattress, harder than he’d intended.

Wooyoung curses under his breath and apologizes to San, repeating it over and over again until San tugs him by his neck and kisses him, body arching to meet him. Wooyoung pushes him back against the mattress, gently this time.

“I do want you, San. _I want you_ ,” Wooyoung confesses, breathless from the bruising kisses. He leans down and kisses his neck once before nosing down his throat and sucking a bruise on freckled skin.

San grabs a fistful of his hair gently and moans with his face pressed against the pillow.

Wooyoung can already feel the heat building at the pit of his stomach, but he needs to talk to him before he does anything else.

“Then, why won’t you touch me?” San asks and it’s crazy how absolutely delectable he looks splayed out like this under him, unguarded and totally comfortable like he knows he belongs here.

“I… I don’t have as much experience with guys as I do with girls,” Wooyoung blurts, flushing at the confession.

San blinks as if he is processing what he’s said. “Wait, really?”

Wooyoung nods. “It’s not that I haven’t had sex with guys. I have. But it was a lot of fumbling and nerves because I had no clue what to do. It didn’t help that none of them were _you_.”

“The girls weren’t me either,” San points out, but there’s no judgment there.

“Exactly. They weren’t you and there was no way to project my image of you on them when they had boobs and the whole deal, you know?”

Wooyoung lets out a long-suffering sigh as he finishes, vaguely gesturing at San’s body.

“Are you telling me that you were hesitant to have sex with guys because you were scared that you’ll somehow pretend like it was me with you when it was only a random dude?”

Wooyoung guesses that his silence is answer enough because San curses under his breath and scoots up to pull him into a hug.

“I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Woo. I thought you were having a bi crisis or something. I was so fucking scared. I mean I would have found a way around it if you didn't want to, but god, it scared the fuck out of me because I was like what if you regret confessing?”

Wooyoung laughs against his ear, San protesting that it tickles. “I would never. I have pined over you for too long and it's not a bi crisis by the way. Just a you crisis,” he says.

“Oh my God, you’re so cheesy. I hate it here,” San declares, making faces of disgust even if he keeps giggling in between.

“Do you?” Wooyoung asks, pushing him down on the mattress again, grabbing San’s wrists and sliding his hands up to open his fists and splay them out to link their fingers together. He reconnects their lips together, inhaling his open-mouthed moans when he starts kissing his neck again. San’s skin is smooth and soft beneath his lips and Wooyoung doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get enough of it.

Wooyoung stops sucking a hickey into his skin when San frees one of his hands and grabs the hair at the base of Wooyoung’s neck. “Are you sure you want this?” San asks, concerned and breathless, his pupils dilated and hair messy, but he’s undeniably turned on. Wooyoung can tell by how he’s hard against his own crotch.

Wooyoung doesn’t think he’s ever been so sure of anything in his life, so he leans in and bites San’s ears, enjoying the moan it draws out of him. He knows they should be quiet because his parents are asleep downstairs, but Wooyoung can’t be bothered because San is finally in his arms and he can’t bring himself to care about anything else as San keeps making these absolutely sinful noises. 

It also helps that sounds usually didn’t travel very well downstairs unless it was super loud. He didn’t intend on making San scream today.

Perhaps another day.

“I’ve never been more sure about anything, San,” he says, nudging San’s chin with his nose to kiss his neck again. 

“How do you want this?” Wooyoung asks. He doesn’t know what San prefers, but he’s a switch who doesn’t mind either positions as long as it was comfortable for the both of them.

“You on top fucking me,” San says after a moment, gasping when Wooyoung bites his jaw at the crass way he says it even if it is unbelievably hot.

San’s free hand snakes down to his crotch and palms his cock, and Wooyoung chokes on his breath, mind flashing in pleasure at the sudden but not unwelcome sensation. San grinds up, throwing his head back and moaning at the contact. Wooyoung thinks that looking at San is enough to make him come, but he’s made a promise he intends to keep. 

Wooyoung feels San’s hand drag up again, this time under his t-shirt and it’s a clear enough signal that Wooyoung sits up, his knees on either side of San’s thighs as he tugs his shirt off. San doesn’t shy away from staring, soft palms roaming around his chest. Briefly, he registers how easy it is, how there's little to no fumbling and he can't remember a time he's been so in tune with someone in bed.

“May I?” He asks, tugging on San’s shirt, trying to ignore how self-consciousness is starting to raise its head up. 

San breathes heavily in response, nodding vehemently. Wooyoung pulls his t-shirt over his shoulder and throws it to the side. He’s about to lean down and worship San for the God he is when he catches San staring.

“What?” He asks, mentally noting that the word was becoming a catchphrase between the two of them.

“You’re so fucking _hot. Oh my God,”_ San moans and arches up to kiss his neck, Wooyoung dragging his nails down his back.

“Says you,” Wooyoung gasps as San stretches in unholy ways to bite his ear, blowing air into it.

They’re both stark naked when San tells him that there’s lube and condoms in his backpack. Wooyoung takes a moment to register what he’s said before he scrambles off the bed, wobbling on his jelly-like legs. San tugs at Wooyoung’s hair again as he straddles him. San fervently bucks his hips, melting into the moan he lets out.

“You have a thing for hair pulling?” Wooyoung asks, one hand pressed against San’s lower abdomen as he mouths at San’s cock.

San nearly cants his hips again, but Wooyoung keeps him down with his hand. “Maybe,” San admits.

Wooyoung finds his hand and fixes it on his head. “Do your worst,” he says with a wink and goes down on him, San shuddering under him. He does have a gag reflex, but he forces his jaw to relax and focuses on San’s pleasure alone, which is the easiest thing to do when San keeps making these noises which go straight to his dick.

San guides him along when he hesitates with fingering him. Every word out of San’s mouth forms a constant stream of praise and awe and it spurs him on to hook his fingers better, to thrust a little deeper, to crawl up and kiss San and let him taste himself.

When Wooyoung finally pushes into his velvety heat, it feels like an eternity has passed. San is very responsive under him, hiking his legs up for a better angle and Wooyoung realizes that his best friend, now boyfriend, _wasn't_ kidding about his flexibility. His throat dries as San hooks a leg over his shoulder and asks him to lean forward as he thrusts, his moans louder at the angle.

“Does it hurt?” Wooyoung worriedly questions at one point, crouching to lock eyes better with San. He only gets an adamant shake of his head as he coaxes Wooyoung to continue.

When they’re finally done, orgasms syncing up, Wooyoung waddles on his shaky legs to get a warm washcloth to clean the both of them. San smiles at him like an angel once he’s done cleaning up, like he hadn’t been asking him to break him in two just a few minutes ago. The duality is insane, but he isn’t the same person in bed either, so it’s not as shocking to him.

San makes grabby hands and Wooyoung goes willingly, pressing close to him before rubbing their noses together in an eskimo kiss.

“No one’s made me come that hard before,” San says, voice shaky from still gaining back his breath.

“Yeah?” Wooyoung grins as his ego expands to fill the room, San leaning in again to kiss him, just the barest hint of their tongues meeting before he sucks his lip into his mouth.

“I love you,” he whispers as San finally scoots down and curls in his arms.

“I love you too,” San whispers back, his lips pressing the words on his skin.

Wooyoung hadn’t imagined the break going this way, but he finds that he’s definitely _not_ complaining.

***

Being San’s boyfriend is not very different to being his best friend, Wooyoung thinks, mostly because he gets to have the best of both worlds in the one person he’d never in a million years thought he’d have. 

Wooyoung straightens up as San makes a beeline for him from across the cafeteria and even though he had thought that he wasn’t too into public displays of affection, San’s too irresistible to ignore. Wooyoung pulls him in by his waist and presses a bruising kiss against San’s lips.

He hears a chorus of groans and gagging from the gang.

“I almost wish you’d never confessed,” Yeosang groans, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Okay, rude,” San says, pointing a finger at Yeosang. 

Wooyoung raises an eyebrow at San in a way he knows he’ll understand and smiles as he kisses him, going as far as they can in a cafeteria without making a spectacle of themselves. San rakes his nails down his throat and moans for show.

“Oh lord, there are two of them,” Jongho mutters as if he is in pain, but Wooyoung’s too invested in San to retort, his hands rubbing circles on San’s waist, feeling like his heart is going to shatter at how happy he feels with San by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, y'all!! I genuinely hope you guys liked it!! Please let me know your thoughts on the fic in the comments section and leave kudos if you liked what you saw! I'm working on a dystopian au with Escort Wooyoung and Military Mercenary Sergeant San now! I'll post it very soon~ So keep an eye out for that too!!
> 
> PS: If you wanna keep up with my future works, please go to my ao3 profile and click on the subscribe button! Subscribing to this fic won't subscribe you to my future fics, just this fic and since this is finished, there will be no more updates! Just FYI!
> 
> Have an awesome day/night, rockstars! Stay healthy and keep safe!! Thank you for reading!!
> 
> Come yell at me on my [CC](https://curiouscat.me/wooyoungisthesun)!
> 
> I yell about fics on my private [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/rayteezer) account, so feel free to hit me up there too if you'd like to see endless screaming about Wooyoung, ATEEZ and wips~

**Author's Note:**

> This was purely self-indulgent because I'm super Soft for woosan's bond with each other and felt like the tag could do with some More woosan content because _More_ is _always_ good! Especially when it's woosan~ I would also like to apologize for writing San's parents as being largely absent which we know isn't the case irl~ It was done purely for plot purposes! 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought about the fic in the comments section and leave kudos if you liked what you saw! Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're happy and healthy wherever you are and if you aren't, here you go, free gentle head pats for you~ 
> 
> Come yell at me on my [CC](https://curiouscat.me/wooyoungisthesun)!
> 
> I yell about fics on my private [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/rayteezer) account, so feel free to hit me up there too if you'd like to see endless screaming about Wooyoung, ATEEZ and wips~


End file.
